


Path of the Penitent

by WaveMaker



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Among the plot there will be fluff, And the discovery of Indian food, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Anxious Draco Malfoy, Black Hermione Granger, Brief descriptions of unsuccessful sexual violence, But I promise it isn't all so intense, Communication, Demisexuality, Disabled Character, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Fat Shaming (brief mention), Flashbacks, Forced Empathy, Forced Honesty, House Elves, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), Occasional violence, POV Draco Malfoy, Panic Attacks, Person of Color Harry Potter, Plotty, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rebuilding a sense of self, Recovery, Redemption, Slow Burn, Some of it quite graphic, Some of it self-inflicted, Struggling with intense feelings of shame and worthlessness, There will also be downtime and long conversations, long!fic, making amends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 05:05:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21113126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaveMaker/pseuds/WaveMaker
Summary: It is the morning after the Battle of Hogwarts. Draco sits, shell-shocked, with his parents among the survivors, wondering what will happen next.The house of Malfoy is on the brink of collapse. Draco must avoid being sent to prison at all costs so that he can rebuild the family name. Even if it means invoking the ancient house-elf magic of the Path of the Penitent, which neatly circumvents the Wizengamot, but binds him to personally make amends to each of the people he has wronged...





	1. 2nd May, 1998

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the fabulous Porphyrios. Thank you so much for all your help.
> 
> If you are looking for short, beautifully dark Drarry, or long Bagginshield, check out [Porphyrios's work](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porphyrios/pseuds/Porphyrios).

Draco sat shoulder to shoulder between his parents on the familiar bench, looking out over the Great Hall. Under the cover of the long dining table in front of them, Draco held tightly to his father’s hand on his right, and his mother’s on his left. They were not a touchy family as a rule, but this was definitely time for an exception. Since they had found each other at the end of the battle all three of them had kept as close together as possible. The firm press of his parents’ shoulders against his own felt like the only thing keeping him upright at the moment.

The sun shining strongly down from the enchanted ceiling confirmed that it was already well into mid-morning. They had sat there for hours, and apart from accepting some water and sandwiches from a tray carried by a house-elf, they had interacted with no-one else in the room.

Still, just from listening to those sat around them, they had picked up the pieces of news that came filtering in from across the country. Everyone who had been _Imperiused_ had come back to themselves; Kingsley Shacklebolt was the temporary Minister for Magic; some of their fellow Death Eaters were dead, some captured, some fled. None of it seemed truly important.

He could not stop himself from staring at the place where the Dark Lord had fallen. He was gone. They were safe. Both his parents were here, right here, still alive.

The memories kept replaying in his mind; the images were so fresh and recent they didn’t even feel like memories yet. This morning, just a few hours ago, Harry Potter had stood _there_, somehow suddenly alive again, and the Dark Lord had stood _there_ and Draco had been crushed in the corner near the door to the Entrance Hall, holding his breath with the rest of them as he attempted to follow each revelation.

Severus was dead. He had not been on their side. He had been a spy for the Order from Draco’s babyhood, in love with Potter’s mother, in love with a _muggleborn_. He had killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore’s own orders. Not to save Draco.

The Elder wand wasn’t a myth. The Dark Lord was holding it, which surely meant that it was all over, that they were going to die right then in that hall. But Potter hadn’t even flinched, he had looked so focused and confident, and for the first time Draco thought that he might succeed.

And then Potter had said that someone had taken the Elder Wand from Dumbledore before he died, and the shock of realisation had hit him like a fist to the gut moments before Potter said it:

_“The true master of the Elder Wand was Draco Malfoy.”_

And joy rose in him before his brain had even fully understood why. Even as the Dark Lord put him next on the list to die after Potter, he could only feel relief. Never in all those miserable wandless weeks would he have thought he could be so searingly grateful to see his wand clutched tight in Potter’s hand.

The strike, the spells, the Dark Lord crumpling: in those final moments, for the first time in forever, Draco felt no fear. Potter’s hand snatching the Elder Wand from the air felt perfect and inevitable. Even the final tearing stab of agony from his Dark Mark couldn’t dim his elation.

In the last five or so hours, that serene clarity had already faded as if it had never been. Only the hands gripping his kept him from detaching completely from his own body. He welcomed the numbness, though; some part of him knew that this exhausted fog was going to be preferable to whatever emotion came next.

He looked over at where Potter was sitting. The Malfoys were probably the only people in the hall who hadn’t tried to approach him since the battle ended. He looked as exhausted as Draco felt, his eyes still bloodshot from the smoke of the Fiendfyre. How couldn’t the others have noticed that he just wanted to be left alone?

Lovegood said something to Potter, then she was turning and pointing.

“Oooh, look, a Blibbering Humdinger!”

Draco didn’t look. He watched as Potter pulled that cloak over himself and disappeared.

Good.

He watched out of the corner of his eye, and a few seconds later he saw Weasley and Granger get up and walk out of the hall.

A few minutes later, someone from their left slid a piece of parchment and a quill and a bottle of ink towards them. Draco reluctantly let go of his mother’s hand to allow her to reach for them.

“It is a list of the fallen,” his mother said softly.

Draco looked down at the parchment. Names, written in many different hands, almost covered it completely. Draco’s eyes widened.

His mother finished reading, then passed the parchment over to Draco. Draco blinked, getting his vision to focus, and scanned the page rapidly, anxiety clenching his insides.

He didn’t see Goyle. He did see his cousin, Nymphadora Tonks, and her werewolf husband. He felt a stronger clench of sadness for this Tonks, someone he had never and, now, would never meet, than he did for his own aunt Bellatrix.

The Gryffindor Lavender Brown. Draco remembered her inane giggle, could see her defiant, pretty face. _No_. A note beside her name said that Greyback had got her.

Fred Weasley.

He averted his eyes from the rest of the list, not wanting any more names to jump out at him. Instead he reached for the quill and ink, and, with handwriting that was much more shaky than usual, wrote _‘Vincent Crabbe: died in the Fiendfyre he unleashed within the Room of Hidden Things’._

He lifted his head and pushed the parchment onwards to his father. His mother had seen what he had written, and gave him a look full of quiet concern and sympathy. She reached back under the table and squeezed his hand.

Draco squeezed back and took a couple of deep breaths.

His father had passed on the parchment and now turned back.

“We must consider our next move,” his father said quietly, making sure his voice didn’t carry.

His mother nodded.

Draco hadn’t heard his father sound so calm in a long time. Despite his stringy silver hair and puffy, bruised eye he had an air of authority. Draco ached to see it.

“The Ministry are nearly finished with rounding up the others. They will remember us soon. We must prepare for our arrests.”

Draco’s head came up sharply. The last of the numb fog was draining from his mind, leaving the familiar tang of terror.

“I will be in Azkaban for the rest of my life,” his father continued. He could have been speaking of the weather. “Your mother may fare better - ”

“I will. I have no Mark, and Harry Potter owes me a life-debt,” his mother said.

Draco frowned at her, but he knew that now was not the time to ask how that had happened.

“Father - we must flee, now, before they come for you - ”

“It is pointless, Draco. We have no wand between the three of us. And I will only harm your prospects even more as a fugitive than if I come willingly.”

“My _prospects?_ I don’t care about my - ”

“Listen, Draco. Your mother will probably still have to serve some kind of sentence. My hope is for a large fine and house-arrest, for only a few years. You may receive a similar sentence, if the new mudblood regime is merciful enough to take into consideration that you were a child during most of the war. However, we cannot count on it. This war has been too bitter. They will want revenge. They will want to see the Malfoys suffer. They will want to see us stripped of everything we have.”

Draco shuddered. All at once, he remembered visiting his father in Azkaban. The awful, clammy cold of it, the sunken despair from the dementors.

“You can’t go back there, father.” He struggled to slow his breathing.

“I can, and I will. _You_ must not. I put us all on the losing side of this war, and I will not have you paying for my mistakes. You are the future of the house of Malfoy. We all must do whatever it takes to reduce your punishment and have you reestablished into society. You must find a way for the family to recover from this disgrace.”

Draco looked from his father to his mother, hoping to find her ready to help him talk some sense into Lucius. Instead she was nodding, her face grave.

“Draco, my darling, your father is right. It is over for us. We will submit to however the new regime sees fit to treat us. You have by far the harder role to fill. You must keep the house of Malfoy from falling into the hands of the blood traitors. All they see is our wealth and our estates. They do not know the old magic. You are the only one who can uphold it. You must fight for your freedom.”

Draco stared at her, feeling whatever hope he had had fold up into nothing in his chest. He knew his parents were right, but for an instant he allowed himself to wish, fiercely, that things were different. Then he forced himself to put that wish aside.

“But.” His voice came out wrong, too strangled. He swallowed and tried again. “But how can I do that? I’m a Death Eater, too.”

“The Potter boy also owes you a life-debt,” his father said. “You did not identify him when he was at the Manor.”

Draco was momentarily stunned that they were talking openly about that. He had locked that secret down behind his Occlumency, lied and lied so desperately… but of course his father knew. He shook his head. “He has repaid it tonight. Twice over. I would have burned to death but he - he came back for me. And then he stunned a Death Eater who had me cornered.”

His parents shared a glance over his head. He could sense their worry.

“Narcissa, my love - perhaps you could use your life-debt on behalf of Draco?”

His mother frowned at his father. “You know that it doesn’t work that way. He owes Draco less than nothing. In fact, Draco owes _him_.”

They were all silent for a minute. This was bleak. Potter may be sickeningly noble, but there was a difference between spur-of-the-moment heroics to prevent Draco’s fiery death and preventing Draco from going to prison. Potter would want to see all the Death Eaters brought to justice. He’d lock Draco away forever and throw away the key, and probably enjoy it.

“Then I think… I think the best thing to do is to offer your full cooperation to the aurors.” His father sounded resigned. “Tell them everything you know. It should help them capture and get convictions for much worse offenders than you. It will give you something to bargain with for leniency in your own sentencing.”

“You would have me tell them everything? Even… your involvement?”

Draco’s stomach twisted in disgust. He was no stranger to saving his own skin, but turning on his own father?

“Yes. _Especially_ my involvement. I am already going down for life, Draco. It will not really make things worse. But it will prove to them that you are not leaving anything out. The more you can show that you are putting distance between us, the better.”

Draco frowned at his father. Lucius looked back at him, his puffy face almost kind. Draco swallowed past a lump in his throat. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

“Not for… probably not for a few years, at least. It will be better to give the appearance that you no longer wish to be associated with me.”

Draco pressed his lips together, hard, to stop his eyes from prickling. He fixed his father with a blazing look. “I will make you proud, father. I will not forget you. I will follow the old ways.”

His father lifted his chin, and for a moment looked as regal as he once had. “You have already made me proud, Draco. And I am sorry for - for all the ways I have failed you. I know you will be a better man than me.”

Draco’s breath caught. It was very rare for his father to say he was proud of him. And never in Draco’s _whole life_ had his father apologised to him. He dropped his gaze to the table and gave his father a brief nod of acknowledgement, not trusting himself to speak.

Lucius cleared his throat. “It is time for you to come into your inheritance.” Draco snapped his gaze back to his father’s face. “If I am Lord of the Manor when they sentence me, they will take our whole estate in reparations, and the house of Malfoy will be lost. If _you_ are the Lord, they will have a harder time justifying that. Even if you can find no way to get a more lenient sentence, they still have less to convict you with and so cannot take as much.”

Draco nodded slowly. It made sense. Just - Merlin - eight hours ago he had been clutching Goyle, sure he was going to die, and now he was about to become head of the family? He wanted to say he was too young for this, far too young for the responsibility, but he stopped himself. He had to do this.

“I am ready, father,” he said.

His father gave him a small smile, approval radiating from him. Draco tried to drink it in, tried to store it away so it could sustain him after he could no longer have his father.

Lucius reached down into his boot and brought out a small silver knife. He kept it below the level of the table, so that no-one else could see it.

There wasn’t chance for any of the pomp and ceremony that would normally go along with this. But luckily, at heart, the magic was very simple, and ancient. It didn’t even require any specific words, or a wand.

His father held the knife in his left hand, so he could press the blade into the meat of his right palm, under the table. Not even a flicker of discomfort marred his father’s impassive expression as blood started to trickle down his fingers from the deep gash in his hand.

He passed the knife to Draco. Draco’s heart had started beating faster already in anticipation of the pain, and he wanted to kick himself for being such a coward. After everything, was he really afraid of a little _cut_, for Gods’ sake?

It was difficult, though, to force himself to press hard enough into his skin with the metal. It took him a few moments longer than it had for his father, and when he managed it, he couldn’t suppress a small hiss of pain. He felt the blood start to pool, wet and hot, along his hand and down onto the floor.

Draco felt his mother’s hand on his lower back, and it was comforting. His mother and father gazed at each other for a moment, and Draco could tell they were saying goodbye. He wished it was possible to give them a minute alone together, but it was too late now.

Lucius turned back to look at him. He lifted his right arm, and Draco did too, and they clasped their bleeding hands together as if they were about to have an arm-wrestling match.

Someone sitting at the table behind them started saying, “Hey, are you bleeding - ?”

“I pass the mantle down, from father to son,” Lucius said, eyes locked with Draco’s.

“Oi! Hey! They’re doing blood magic!” The someone from the other table had started to shout. Draco registered a flurry of movement as people stood up from the benches around them.

“I accept the mantle,” Draco said quickly, just before a hand grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him away from his father.

“What were you doing?” The male voice was rough with panic.

“Filthy little Death Eater!” A high-pitched female voice, this time.

Draco could no longer see. His vision was clouded with red splotches, fading to black, and he felt himself fall off the bench. The last thing he was aware of was the weight of the old magic settling into his bones.


	2. 3rd May, 1998

_He feels his roots twisting deep, drawing the goodness up from the earth. He feels his millions of branches reaching to the sky, his billions of leaves stretching outwards to drink in the sun. He feels the pulse of each day passing like a heartbeat, the slow rhythm of seasons as he relinquishes his leaves, sleeps, wakes again and grows fresh new leaves._

_Gradually he feels his spirit drawing inwards. His roots cover less ground. Now he is just one tree, a magnificent oak, gnarled and old, at the edge of a bright young brook. He loves that brook, he can feel his roots mingling with it, accepting its refreshing stream. He yearns to see it, to play with it. But in this form he is too old, too still, too dull. So he gathers his spirit even closer within himself, and steps out of the tree._

_He is standing lightly on two feet, gazing around himself with new eyes. Everything is intense and the colours almost glow. The time moves so much slower. He looks down at his branches - no, fingers - and laughs with delight at their agility, how lovely and pale and long they are. Then he kneels down and gazes at his brook. Here by the bank a curve in the stream has made a patch of water that is calm enough in which to see himself. He laughs again, reaching up to his own face to touch the pointed ears, the silver-blond hair, his black eyes and sharp teeth. Then he reaches down and touches the water, gently caressing it, and glories in finally being able to play with his love._

_The ripples from his touch still slowly, and as he watches, a different face appears below the water, a beautiful face with silver eyes, smiling at him. The face rises up, breaks the surface of the water, and the spirit of the brook steps out from the stream to join him._

_And now he is their child, a being of land and water, graceful as both his parents. He bends close to the brook again to watch as his form continues to change. The reflection of his face flickers across the water as he becomes person after person. He no longer has pointy ears; he still has silver eyes and silver-blond hair; he is short, he is tall, his teeth are flattening, no longer sharp. He sees the face of a calm young woman, a genial old man, a worried-looking teenage lad. Almost all are men. They are all different, but they all keep the family traits - the hair and the eyes and the pale skin. As the faces flicker faster and faster, he begins to recognise some from the portraits back in the Manor. And he can’t help but notice that the faces look much less delighted as time moves on, the lips of many are twisted back in a sneer, and lines of strain and hate start to pinch around many of his mouths._

_Finally, Draco finds himself for a long moment looking into the face of his grandfather in the water. Abraxas Malfoy has white hair drawn back by a plait at either side of his face. His expression is severe, a frown mars his haughty brow, and his silver eyes flash angrily. Draco gives him a cautious nod, and of course, Abraxas nods too, because he _is _Abraxas. He is every one of his ancestors, and now they live in him._

***

Draco came to with a huge gasp. He was lying shirtless on his back on a hard stone floor, although someone had bundled some fabric behind his head as a makeshift pillow. He opened his eyes and stared at the stone ceiling, surprised to find it quite familiar.

It looked just like the ceiling of the potions classroom.

He was in one of the Hogwarts’ dungeons.

He drew in gasp after gasp of the cold, clammy air, feeling as if he hadn’t drawn breath during his entire vision. He had known he was going to see his ancestors, of course, but it felt different than he had always expected. More bittersweet.

He jerked his gaze down towards his body as movement caught his eye. Standing with her hands hovering, palms downwards, above his bare chest, was the oldest house-elf that Draco had ever seen.

“Who are you?”

The elf looked at him, her big brown eyes hooded by sagging eyelids. Her tanned skin was as wrinkly as a walnut, and her remaining hair was just wisps of white sticking straight up from her head. She wore a tiny version of what was unmistakably simple black wizarding robes; she was a free elf.

She continued moving her hands above Draco’s skin in small deliberate circles, and despite the fact that she wasn’t touching him, Draco could feel her magic tingling across his chest where she passed. It felt soothing, and he realised that she was helping to dispel the deep ache that the old magic had left clinging to his bones.

“My name is being Frona,” she croaked.

There was a sound from Draco’s left and he turned his head, to see another, much younger, house-elf who he very much did recognise.

“Prudy!”

Prudy still wore the faded pillow-case that she had worn as the Malfoy house-elf, but over that, in an odd contrast, she wore Draco’s own dark purple satin waistcoat. It was big enough on her to look like a tunic-dress, and Draco thought that it must have been tied up somehow at the back to prevent it from slipping off her frail shoulders.

She blinked her large, frightened eyes at him and wrung her hands in a familiar gesture of distress.

“Prudy is being glad that Master Draco is alive! Prudy was so worried!”

Draco’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t really know what to say. He hadn’t expected to ever see Prudy again. “Thanks, Prudy - but you know, I’m not your master any more.”

Prudy’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Oh - well - Prudy was hoping… b-but Prudy understands if - ”

Draco’s eyes widened in alarm as Prudy edged closer to out-and-out sobbing.

“My grand-daughter was hoping that young Master Malfoy would take Prudy back into service,” Frona said.

“Oh! Yes, of course, Prudy, if - if you still want to…”

Prudy instantly stopped crying and beamed. “Now that Master Malfoy is the head of the family, Prudy will be very happy to serve him!”

For a second, Draco wondered how Prudy could possibly already know that he was now Lord Malfoy, but there was no accounting for the way house-elf magic worked.

“Excellent. Right. Welcome back to the household, Prudy,” Draco said, feeling faintly ridiculous about doing this from a prone position on the floor, but determined to show good manners.

“Thank you, Master Draco!” Prudy clapped her hands together and actually did a little gambolling hop-skip of happiness. Draco couldn’t imagine why she would ever want to come back to Malfoy Manor. He felt really rather touched by her loyalty.

Frona stopped circling her hands above Draco and sat back on a tiny stool behind her with a deep sigh. “Frona has done all that can be done, Master Malfoy. How is you feeling?”

Draco tentatively shifted up onto his elbows. The ache was gone now that the old magic had settled. He could still feel it inside him, like a second layer of skin; strange, but not uncomfortable.

“That’s really helped.”

Frona nodded, satisfied. “Frona is doing what Frona can for your other wounds, but they is being cursed, Master Draco.”

_What other wounds? _Draco’s first instinct was to look at his inner left forearm, hoping that the Dark Mark had disappeared, but it was the same as ever. Now that the Dark Lord was gone, perhaps it would fade over time… And at least it would never burn again.

He sat up and checked himself over carefully. His right palm, where he had cut it with the silver knife, now bore a small white straight scar. He touched it for a moment, feeling the slightly raised skin, but it didn’t hurt at all.

His chest seemed much the same, nothing new amongst the mess of old Sectumsempra scars. He drew his knees up, and suddenly hissed in pain as the muscles of his left calf spasmed.

He reached down and pushed aside the charred, tattered remains of his trouser leg. A chunk of muscle from the back of his calf was missing, a smooth bite-shaped crater, and the skin over it had become the shiny twisted tightness of a healed burn. Draco stared, and remembered. In the Fiendfyre, a griffin of flames had snapped its beak at him as he dragged Goyle up that tower of desks - he had felt heat at the time as he had snatched his leg up higher, but thought nothing further of it - through the rest of the battle he supposed that adrenaline must have kept him going. How could he not have noticed it? But since sitting down on the bench in the hall after the battle, he hadn’t tried to move anywhere, and perhaps the burn had been bad enough to kill all the nerve endings…

He felt over the wound with his fingers, wincing at the wrongness of the dip where there should have been a smooth, strong line. The burned skin was indeed numb, and felt just as shiny and tight as it looked. He could feel the ropey remains of his calf muscle directly underneath it, flexing as he gently moved his foot up and down. There didn’t seem to be nearly enough muscle left for the leg to function normally. Draco gingerly got to his feet and tried putting weight on his left leg, only to hiss in pain as his calf immediately cramped up. He sank back down to sit on the floor and tried not to let any tears escape as his fingers coaxed the rigid muscle to relax again. Eventually, after maybe half a minute, the intense pain faded, and he took a deep, shaky breath.

_Oh, Gods. So I’m a cripple now?_

Draco shivered. Now that Frona’s magic was no longer bathing him, he could feel the cold of the dungeon against his bare skin. He reached behind him and picked up the cloth that had been cushioning his head. It was his shirt and the remains of his singed and filthy school robes, which he pulled on again eagerly. The dirty fabric felt disgusting against his skin, but it cut out the worst of the chill.

Frona peered at him from her stool, and Prudy was wringing her hands again in sympathy, looking concerned. Her pity made Draco sit up straighter. It wouldn’t do to let his house-elf think he couldn’t handle himself. Although, perhaps it was a little late for that - she had seen him at his most helpless, after all. But it was different now he was Lord of the Manor. This was a fresh start, or at least he could pretend it was.

“Is Master wishing to return to the Manor now?” Prudy asked.

Draco blinked at her in surprise. “What do you mean? I’ve been arrested, Prudy.”

“Yes, Master, but I is being able to apparate you away.”

Draco stared at her. He wanted to say ‘You can’t apparate in Hogwarts,’ but of course, house-elves could. They did it all the time.

“I - I appreciate the offer, Prudy, but I’m not sure it would be wise to just leave. The Aurors would be quite annoyed to have to come and get me again.”

Prudy frowned. “But Master is needed at the Manor.”

Draco understood immediately. “Do you know when the new moon - ?” He stopped. He already knew. The knowledge arose instantly, and Draco’s stomach lurched as he realised this was an effect of the old magic. “Three weeks.” Three weeks and a day, to be precise. And the full moon started a week from now.

Three weeks. By then, he had to somehow have sorted all this out, and be back at home. At least it wasn’t _tonight_, at least he had some breathing room… but not enough. Draco thought back to his father’s arrest at the end of fifth year. The Dark Lord had broken his father and the other Death Eaters out of Azkaban again before there had been time for the hearings to start, but before that, the Malfoy solicitors had warned Draco and his mother that the trial could last for months. And now that the war was over, there would be dozens of cases to try. Would that make the process faster or slower? Would they rush all the Death Eaters through, or would they leave some of them waiting years? Either way, Draco doubted he’d be front of the queue. They’d want to try the most serious offenders first, that’s what the public would demand, and Draco had never killed anyone. Thank Merlin.

However, three weeks was a paltry amount of time. He couldn’t just wait for the hearings to come along. He’d had some half-formed idea of pleading to the court, of weaving a piteous tale of a terrified and coerced child, all while being a model convict, meekness personified. But he didn’t have time for any of that. He’d have to throw his political weight around - ha, what political weight? No. He’d have to do as his father had suggested. He’d have to sell everyone else out, as quickly and thoroughly as possible, even though he would most certainly be making his father’s situation significantly worse. Draco swallowed, feeling ill. Then he took a deep breath and forced himself to accept his father’s logic. His father was already going to Azkaban for decades at least - what was the difference, really, between thirty years and life without parole?

_Oh shit. _Draco felt his insides freeze. _The Kiss._

How could he have forgotten the Dementor’s Kiss?

His father had deliberately misled him; he had softened the likely consequences when he explained the plan. Azkaban hadn’t had dementors since their defection two years ago, but now that the Dark Lord was gone the Ministry would get them back under control. Fucking hell, Draco couldn’t do it. He couldn’t risk that happening. If his father was Kissed - Merlin, no, no - then his soul would be gone. He’d never join his ancestors in the grove, even when his husk of a body eventually died. Draco would truly never see his father again.

Of course, Draco would be questioned under Veritaserum in any case, but it still wouldn’t be as revealing as freely offering his memories to the court. The damage to his father would be limited by the court’s knowledge of the right questions to ask. But he would also be offering no more than every other Death Eater. He would have no bargaining power at all.

Maybe… maybe Prudy could just apparate him home on the nights of the new moon? He could be back in his cell in less than an hour. It wasn’t too much of a risk, was it? But no, he was being stupid. He had only been shoved in this dungeon underneath Hogwarts as a temporary measure, while everyone finished clearing up after the battle. Hogwarts was warded to the eyries against intruders, but its dungeons resembled nothing more than dingy classrooms. Soon he’d be transferred to await trial in the Ministry cells, or, or in Azkaban, and both of those places had had centuries to close all the loop-holes of a wizarding prison. They would have safeguards against house-elf abilities.

So he _would _have to leave now. Except that was utterly pointless - what would he do, go on the run? He had to be at the Manor every new moon, and even if, with Prudy’s help, he managed to stealthily apparate in and out for a few months, eventually some Auror would work out the pattern of the break-ins and set up a very simple ambush. It was only delaying the inevitable.

Okay. What about the way they’d handled this back when his father had been imprisoned? He remembered the monthly visits to Azkaban over that miserable year. His mother had smuggled in the silver knife, and his father’s dripping blood always seemed far too loud as he slowly filled a glass phial. Prudy could be Draco’s visitor, and hide the knife… But Prudy wouldn’t be able to use the blood afterwards. It had only worked because Draco was a Malfoy.

Bribery? No, no, no - the Ministry would seize all their assets anyway.

He was out of options.

“I… don’t see a way. I think I might be the Malfoy who breaks the line.”

“No, Master!” Prudy covered her mouth with her hands and gazed at him with eyes full of horror. Draco kept his back straight, with difficulty.

“There is a way.” Frona’s voice was croaky with age. Both Draco and Prudy turned to her.

No house-elf had ever looked at Draco the way Frona was doing now: direct, calm, and cooly appraising. His instinct was to reprimand her for her forwardness, but he stifled it. She was free, ancient and powerful, and Draco couldn’t force her to do anything. It wasn’t the first time that his only hope depended on a house-elf, and no matter how demeaning it might be, he would willingly beg her to help him if necessary.

“Mami? What is this way?” Prudy said.

Frona turned to her. “Is young Master Malfoy a good master, Prudy?”

Draco’s heart sank.

Prudy gaped at her grandmother. Then she started twisting her right ear painfully in her hand, her eyes darting to Draco, clearly torn between disappointing him and defying Frona.

“Speak freely, Prudy. I will not punish you.”

“Master is - Master is being much better now,” Prudy squeaked, blushing.

Frona’s eyes narrowed. “And before now?”

“Master Draco is not knowing any better! Master is only doing as old Master Lucius is showing him…”

Frona turned to glare at Draco. Draco wilted under her anger, his dignified posture slumping.

“And is young Master Malfoy _sorry?_” She asked quietly.

“Yes.” His voice came out as a whisper. He cleared his throat and met Frona’s gaze. “Yes. I’m very sorry.”

Frona stared at him for several long seconds, and Draco didn’t dare to look away. Eventually, she nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever she saw on his face.

“Then Frona will help the young Master.”

***

Two hours later, Draco and Prudy landed in the entrance hall of the Manor. Draco had to let go of Prudy’s hand and lean heavily on the cane Frona had conjured for him to avoid falling to the floor as his left calf spasmed. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to prevent any sound of pain escaping and waited for the half-minute it took for his leg muscle to settle again. Prudy watched him carefully, eyes wide and worried.

He nodded to her when the pain had passed, and they made towards the large wooden door leading to the drawing room, Draco limping as quietly as he could behind Prudy. He found that if he barely pressed the sole of his left foot to the floor while putting most of his weight on the cane and moving his right foot as quickly as possible, he could manage to avoid triggering a full cramp in his leg. It still throbbed with every step though, and the carpet did little to muffle the clunk of his cane hitting the stone floor in the stillness.

The drawing room barely resembled the elegant room Draco had grown up with. The Death Eaters had found many ways to entertain themselves during their residence here and one involved destroying and defacing the Malfoys’ property with impunity. Deep gouges scarred the surface of the long table, there was rubble in the fireplace, and the mirror above the mantelpiece was cracked clear from one edge to the other. The portraits here had all been abandoned by their occupants months ago; they were still hiding in the relative safety of the upper floors.

Draco looked round nervously but they were alone. Turning left, they went through the door to the cellars, along the short passageway. Draco found the descent of the rough stone stairs nearly impossible, but he refused to shuffle down the steps on his bum or let Prudy levitate him. Eventually he managed it through placing his cane on the step below, bracing his hand on the wall on the other side, and hopping down on his good leg.

At the bottom of the stairs, he ignored the door to his left that led to the wine cellar, or rather, the dungeon below the dining room where Lovegood and Ollivander and so many others had been held - even Potter, for all of ten minutes. Instead, he stopped in front of the stone wall directly in front of him.

He needed to cut himself, but he didn’t have a knife. He considered asking Prudy to fetch a kitchen knife, but he didn’t want her going anywhere alone before they knew that the rest of the Manor was empty. “Prudy,” he whispered to the elf at his feet. “Can your magic cut me?”

Prudy looked horrified. “Prudy is not cutting the master!”

“Just a little one, here on my hand. You can heal it in a minute.”

The elf was shaking her head back and forth so hard her ears flapped. “Prudy is forbidden to harm wizards and witches - ”

“What if I order you?”

“Please, master, don’t…” Her pleading sounded almost betrayed.

“Prudy, I order you to cut my palm.”

She frowned crossly, but reached up and grabbed his hand in her small one. With her other hand, she dragged one finger an inch along his skin. Draco flinched slightly, but it didn’t even hurt that much. His leg was worse. A shallow cut had opened, enough for a few beads of blood to rise to the surface. He wiped his hand across the wall in front of him, wincing as the rough stone caught the cut. Immediately, the stone melted away to form a rough archway.

The room beyond it was much larger than the wine cellar. It covered the space underneath the entrance hall and the rooms either side of it, and continued out under the gravel and gardens for a good five hundred yards.

The last time Draco had been in here, he had seen a low-ceilinged, dark room with a tiled floor. The tiles, in fact, were the room’s main and only feature. The entire floor was made from a detailed mosaic, showing static pictures of the Malfoy family tree going back seventy generations.

This time, Draco found himself looking into an oak wood, dusky sunlight falling softly onto the summer leaves. The ancestral grove.

He stepped forward, only to have his hand grabbed again by a muttering house-elf.

“Master is hurting himself… Master should take better care of himself…”

She passed her hand over his and the cut vanished.

He turned back to look further into the wood. He had been told that he would see this, of course, but knowing the wood was here and being inside it were two different things. No wonder his father had loved coming down here. Above him, through the thick leaves, he could see hints of a darkening blue sky, lighter over towards the west. Looking as far as he could through the trunks, he could see no sign of the walls. The ground was mossy, springy earth, but as he limped forwards to the nearest tree, a tall half-grown sapling, he could still see the mosaic of his own face framed in its tiled circle on the ground in front of it.

Prudy followed him as he worked his way through the trees. She had summoned a small orb of light in front of herself, since for her this place was still a dark cellar. Draco watched bemused as she walked straight through one of the oak trees, but when Draco checked, it was solid and real beneath his hands.

The cane tore chunks of moss as he limped along. Draco’s leg was really starting to burn as he passed beyond the point where his ancestors had started having portraits painted. The oak trees were becoming larger and older with every step. He gritted his teeth; there was still just as far to go again.

By the time he reached the final tree at the back of the room, his wonder had been worn down by pain. He sat heavily with his back against the enormous, wizened trunk, gasping. After a minute of resting with his head back, he felt somewhat better, and opened his eyes.

While he had been collecting himself, the tree above him had _moved._ Its ancient branches, already sagging with age, were sagging even lower, deliberately reaching towards him. Draco watched as the branches formed a protective circle around where he sat, and reached out to touch the branch nearest him, remembering how it had felt when he had been this tree. “Hello,” he said softly.

“Is the tree giving Master what is needed?”

“Ah - no - but I haven’t asked yet.” The leaves rustled around him, and he almost felt like laughing at its obvious impatience. “Please, er, sir - could I have a piece of your bark?”

The tree immediately curved a creaking branch across his lap, and Draco watched as a section of bark as wide and long as his hand peeled back for him to take. He picked it up, wincing at the obvious gash left behind. He stroked the exposed wood as if to soothe it and whispered, “Thank you, sir.”

The tree rustled contentedly, then lifted all its branches up again, allowing Draco to leave. He struggled to his feet and started the painful journey back to the main part of the house.

***

It had been a long walk to the kitchens, which were at the far end of the West Wing, and Draco paused several times on the way to rest his leg. Draco had never spent much time in the kitchens, of course, but Prudy immediately looked more relaxed in the big room. The Death Eaters had left it untouched, mainly because they could never be bothered to come to this far end of the house. The copper pans hanging from the ceiling shone warmly in the late afternoon sun, and the flagstones were worn smooth from scrubbing, and covered here and there with elf-made rag-rugs.

They had not spoken on their way here, both of them staying alert, but there had been no sign of anyone. Draco wondered whether his absence from his cell had been discovered yet. He couldn’t decide how the Aurors would respond; surely they wouldn’t think he would do something as stupid as to go straight home, but then on the other hand they wouldn’t have anywhere better to start the hunt. The ritual was nearly completed, but if the Aurors came now, it would all have been for nothing. Draco tensed at the thought, turning to face the two doors leading back into the house, standing guard as Prudy busied herself behind him with filling the kettle with water and placing it on the stove.

The seconds ticked by, the pings of the warming kettle and the crackle of the fire the only sounds. Draco clutched the piece of bark and wished he had his wand - he couldn’t stop imagining the kitchen doors flying open, the Aurors pouring in, and he felt so unbelievably vulnerable with nothing but his cane, barely able to stand on this blasted leg. He could feel his breath starting to come shorter and faster.

Eventually the kettle started whistling, an unbearably loud sound in the silence, and Prudy reached quickly to move it off the heat. She levitated a mug to the kitchen table and came back over to Draco.

“Master - the bark…”

“Oh - right - yes, here - ”

He passed it to her, realising for the first time that apparently the bark was real for her too. She hurried back to the table, climbing a short wooden step ladder to be level to it, and broke the bark into several pieces with her long fingers before dropping it into the mug. Then she levitated the kettle over and poured the boiling water over the bark.

Draco was still facing her when he heard the door bang open and a man behind him starting to shout a spell. He whipped round, cursing his lapse of attention, but his left leg cramped at the sudden movement, and he crashed down onto his knees. The fall saved him, as a bolt of green light flew close over the top of his head and exploded against the far wall.

The man stood only three steps away, framed in the same doorway that Draco and Prudy had come through. It was his dear old uncle, Rodolphus Lestrange, wearing torn, blood-stained robes and clutching a bag stuffed full of what Draco recognised as silverware and various expensive heirlooms.

Draco knew he needed to lunge at his uncle, do _something_, maybe hit him with his cane, but he couldn’t seem to move. Even his breath had stopped. The next moment, Lestrange had got his bearings and slashed viciously with his wand, and Draco heard a pained squeak from Prudy as she crashed into the kitchen cabinets.

“No,” he said, but no sound came out, and he still couldn’t move.

“_Incarcerous,_” Lestrange growled, and ropes lashed around Draco, binding his arms to his sides and his legs together, the cane trapped uncomfortably between his right hand and his thigh. He overbalanced and landed on his side, half on a rag-rug. He twisted desperately over onto his back to keep Lestrange in view.

Lestrange leered at him, his yellow face framed by his lank dark hair. He looked even taller from Draco’s position on the floor.

“Hello, _Draco_.”

Draco wanted to say something cutting to show Lestrange that he wasn’t intimidated, but he could barely even breathe. He felt light-headed.

“We wondered where you’d gone in the battle, _Draco. _Didn’t see you doing much fighting. Typical Malfoy, always ready to let others do the real work, eh?”

Lestrange knelt down over him, and Draco felt spittle land on his face as his uncle continued in a much angrier tone. “Well, it’s all gone to _shit_ now, hasn’t it? Our Lord is gone and I suppose you’re _happy_, you snivelling little worm. You never loved him, never served him willingly. Just like your father, only in it for what you could get out of it. You make me _sick._”

Draco turned his head away from the livid face looming above him. Lestrange’s hand darted out and seized him brutally round the chin, forcing him to turn back and look into his uncle’s dark eyes. Lestrange was panting with fury, but as Draco watched, his expression shifted into an altogether different emotion.

“Got your father’s looks too, didn’t you, pretty boy. What a waste. Bet you’ve never even been touched, have you?”

Draco squeezed his eyes shut. Lestrange used the hand squeezing Draco’s chin to slam Draco’s head back against the floor. The rag-rug softened the impact slightly, but the pain still bloomed across the back of Draco’s skull.

“Look at me when I’m talking, worm!” His voice had gone rough and breathy around the edges, and his eyes were raking across Draco’s face and then down Draco’s body. “Someone should - should really teach you some manners, eh, _Draco?_”

And then Lestrange had swung one leg over him, was straddling him, pinning him down, grinding their groins together. Lestrange’s hand had moved up to Draco’s hair, yanking his head backwards, jamming a wand into his exposed neck. Draco whimpered, hating himself for his weakness. Helplessness coiled with disgust in his stomach, curdling into despair, but he still didn’t want to let this brute know how scared he was.

Lestrange was grunting with each downward thrust of his hips. Draco gagged as he felt his uncle stiffening through their robes. Lestrange moved his wand arm across Draco’s throat, leaning his weight on his forearm so that Draco couldn’t breathe. This left Lestrange’s other arm free to release Draco’s hair and reach down between them, fumbling to push aside the folds of Draco’s robes, and with a sick lurch of fear Draco felt rough fingers find the top button of his trousers…

He began struggling madly, writhing against the ropes, trying to find some leverage with which to push up off the floor. But there was none. Lestrange growled and pressed down even harder on Draco’s windpipe, and Draco’s panic reached new heights as his vision began to blur from lack of oxygen. In desperation, his right hand tightened around the cane down by his thigh, and he wished it was his wand. The rough wood of the cane felt friendly, almost comforting, and Draco thought wildly of the ancient tree down in the cellar, and wished it was here to reach down with strong branches and knock Lestrange out of the way, shield Draco, encircle him in safety -

Draco felt a thrum in his bones as the old magic ignited, and the cane suddenly twisted in his hand, the wood thickening. It was growing at an incredible speed, ropes snapping against the strain. Lestrange made a startled noise as the wood slammed into him, throwing him off Draco. Draco let go of the cane and struggled free of the remaining ropes. Right in front of him, the cane was still growing, roots cracking the flagstones as branches boiled upwards, bending towards Lestrange. The branches seized him, and he screamed as they wrapped around his neck and torso and lifted him off the ground. It was over in seconds. The branches, thick as pythons, coiled around his arms and legs, and Draco heard four distinct snapping noises as the branches clenched deliberately around each of Lestrange’s limbs in turn. Lestrange screamed in earnest, completely suspended in the tree. Thinner tendrils of wood were coming towards his eyes…

“Stop!” Draco cried, and the tree froze, as if it had grown naturally in this position. Lestrange went limp, unconscious. Draco’s breath grated in his throat, his mind wiped blank.

After a long moment, Draco pulled himself up onto hands and knees and crawled under the table to Prudy’s tiny form. She lay crumpled against the cabinets, a horrible gash oozing blood from her forehead. Draco gently laid a hand on her arm, then lifted it, feeling for a pulse on her frail wrist. He almost sobbed in relief when he found one.

No sooner had Draco done this when he heard the kitchen door bang into the wall again. With a wrenching sense of _déjà vu _he spun round on his knees to see two Aurors and - and _Harry Potter _running into the kitchen, wands drawn.

The Aurors, a man and a woman, both glanced at the tree growing out of the floor and its grisly fruit, but Potter wasn’t distracted for a second.

“_Expelliarmus!_”

Nothing happened, of course. Draco hadn’t even thought to look for Lestrange’s wand on his way over to Prudy.

Potter stormed past the tree and Draco realised that, somehow, in the next second, he had to stop him. If Potter got between him and the table then he could stop him getting to the mug of bark tea, and it would all be over. So he did the only thing he could do.

He reached behind him and grabbed Prudy, lifted her to his chest and croaked, “Stop or she dies.”

Potter skidded to a halt, wand pointed directly at Draco’s head. He could clearly see Potter debating whether it was worth trying to aim a stunning spell past Prudy. Draco staggered to his feet, wrapping one hand lightly around Prudy’s neck and trying to look menacing.

“Get back, Potter. Back!”

Potter’s mouth twisted in disdain but he backed up a step, indicating to the others to do the same. Draco was not surprised to see the two Aurors obeying Potter instinctively.

Draco limped quickly to the table, held Prudy higher with one hand to protect his face, grabbed the mug and drained it, all in under three seconds. The liquid was still scorching hot and left his throat feeling even more scoured than before.

“I invoke the Path of the Penitent,” he gasped.

As soon as Potter heard him start talking he yelled, “_Stupefy!_”

The red light shot directly towards him and Draco flinched - but the spell never hit him. Potter stared at him, looking stunned himself. Draco carefully laid Prudy on the table and used one hand on the table’s surface to support him as he limped around it until he was facing the three people under the tree. Distantly, he knew that the compulsion driving him forwards was the tea doing its work. He fell to his knees in front of a nonplussed Potter, bowed his head, and said, “I have wronged you. I beg your forgiveness.”


	3. 4th May, 1998

“What the fuck?” said Potter.

_Indeed_, thought Draco, and felt himself passing out for the second time in two days.

***

_Draco watches himself as a tiny child, standing on a stool in Madam Malkin’s, spouting questions. He feels a sinking wrong-footedness as he doesn’t know any of the answers._

_Draco’s eleven-year-old self is sneering at him on a train, framed by a ridiculously young Crabbe and Goyle. “But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.” He is frightened and intimidated, but determined not to back down._

_Child-Draco sniggers at him from across the Potions classroom as he fails to know about bezoars. Embarrassment makes his face feel hot._

_A tiny Hermione Granger stands in a dark corridor saying, “Malfoy tricked you. You realise that, don’t you? He was never going to meet you.” Draco feels his stomach drop, he feels so foolish and stupid, and so, so angry._

_The scenes begin to blur together as they whirl past, but the emotional impact of each one is distinct and powerful. The intense worry for Hagrid each time Draco tries to get him fired. The loneliness as outrageous newspaper stories ruin any chance of the wizarding world finally understanding him, believing him. The hot, sick crack of his nose as sixteen-year-old Draco stamps on his face. Desperation as a Draco from just yesterday (does he really look that pale and drawn?) aims his mother’s wand at him and does his best to deliver him to the Dark Lord._

_Underneath all of it is a constant swirl of insecurity, humiliation, and helpless rage._

***

Draco blinked and saw - yes - the same Hogwarts’ cell.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he muttered at the ceiling, then winced. His throat felt like it was coated in sand. The back of his head throbbed and his left leg ached. This time there were no house-elves around to heal him, and somehow it seemed as though he had been bruised everywhere.

No house-elves. Frona had made it clear that her goodwill extended as far as telling him about the Path of the Penitent, but no further. And Prudy - with any luck, Prudy was receiving proper medical care right now. Draco’s chest clenched at the memory of how light and limp she had felt in his hands.

No medical care for him, of course. They were all busy attending to the survivors from the winning side of the war.

He gingerly sat up, one hand holding the back of his head as if that might help stop his skull coming apart. He struggled for several moments to get his breathing under control. He was used to pain (he knew far too much about _Crucio_), but he’d never before had to deal with injuries that stuck around for any length of time. He was a fair hand at healing spells, if he had a wand. These endless aches and twinges - especially from his damn leg - were beginning to get to him.

He told himself to stop wallowing in self-pity. For Gods’ sake - if it hadn’t been for the old magic, he would have been in a far worse state than this. He had never known the woodcraft could be so powerful. Or so vicious.

That wasn’t the important thing right now, though. He had to find Potter.

What the hell had Potter been doing with those Aurors, anyway? It had been all of a day since the battle, and they had already dragged Potter out again to start rounding up the left over Death Eaters? He remembered how exhausted Potter had looked sitting on that bench in the Great Hall. Surely the merciful Muggle-lovers could give their hero a proper chance to rest?

He swallowed, remembering his latest magical vision. He’d never thought - it would never have occurred to him that he had succeeded in doing what he’d been trying to do all those years: make Potter feel small. But apparently he had managed that without even trying, from the moment he had started talking in Madam Malkin’s. He hadn’t realised it was Potter at the time of course, and if pressed, he wouldn’t have been able to recall anything he’d said. He had been making polite conversation; that was all it took. Just naturally obnoxious, he supposed.

Draco felt a growing pain in his chest to add to his collection, but he knew this pain wasn’t caused by physical injuries.

He was such an idiot. All that time he had affected Potter more than he would ever have guessed, he had unknowingly achieved what he wanted, and it had never given him any relief. For some reason his mind flashed to an image of his uncle straddled over him, grinding down on him. _Pretty boy._ His breath hitched. He wrapped his arms round his chest, feeling cold, and was not altogether surprised to find he was shaking. He held tight as his breath sped up and his heart raced and the walls of his cell closed in, and he waited as patiently as he could through the endless minutes of terror until he didn’t feel so certain that he was about to die.

He lifted his head off his knees and looked towards the door of the cell. He felt drained as always after an attack, and wanted nothing more than to curl up in a corner and attempt to feel somewhat normal again. But he had to find Potter. The world didn’t give a damn about him feeling ready or not.

He concentrated on each movement, dividing the task of standing into parts that were small enough to face. Getting up off the floor had never felt so complicated, and it probably took him a full five minutes, but by heavily relying on his hands and right leg, he managed it. He didn’t bother trying his left leg, he knew full well that it couldn’t support his weight. He used it as little as possible and half-hopped over the stone to the door.

Now then. The door in front of him was one huge slab of thick, heavy wood, and Draco felt the old magic stirring as he laid a hand against it. He was pretty sure he could transform it as he had the cane, but if the Path of the Penitent worked in the way that Frona said it would, he wouldn’t even need to do that.

He pushed gently on the door. It opened.

“Hey!” The female Auror who had come to the Manor to re-arrest him was sitting on a chair a little way down the corridor. She sprang to her feet as Draco emerged. He almost laughed when he realised that he was only around the corner from the Slytherin quarters.

The Auror was bearing down on him, wand raised. “Get back in your cell! How did you get the door open?”

Draco kept his posture straight even as he wanted to shrink back against the wall. Every sensation felt raw and his heart pounded and he felt a bit nauseous.

The Auror stopped a few steps away from him, obviously wary. Her eyes flickered to his hand, still resting against the wood of the door, and Draco knew she was wondering how much Draco had to do with Lestrange’s injuries.

“_Stupefy_,” she said, and Draco couldn’t prevent the way he startled back, holding his hands up to try and ward it off, panic flaring. But just as before, the red light dispersed harmlessly about a foot away from him.

The Auror glared. “_Incarcerous,_” she spat, and for a fleeting instant Draco was bound hand and foot with his uncle over him, but in reality the ropes had fallen at his feet and vanished.

“_Petrificus totalus_.” Nothing. “_Locomotor mortis_. _Impedimenta._” Not one of the spells reached Draco.

For a moment they just looked at each other. Draco was impressed to see how calm she looked, even while her eyes were wide with shock. He wondered whether she would approach him to try a more Muggle approach to restraining him, but perhaps he had been deemed too dangerous for that, because instead she turned away from him.

“_Expecto patronum,_” she said, and a silver octopus was swimming through the air away from them.

That sounded like his cue to get moving. He turned his back on the Auror and started off down the corridor, keeping his left hand against the stone to help him as he hopped along. He couldn’t go fast and he knew this hopping looked ridiculous, but at this point, he was grateful for any cooperation his body could give him.

The Auror kept pace a few steps behind. Draco watched her out of the corner of his eye as he continued his slow progress. The stretch of wall that marked the entrance to the Slytherin common room was coming up, but the Auror didn’t change her attitude. Not a Slytherin, then.

He hopped to the centre of the stretch of wall, leant up closer against it and whispered, “Destiny.”

The stone melted away and he all but fell through, whipping his right arm inside and turning in time to see the stone close again on the outraged Auror.

He grabbed a fluted stone pillar to stop himself from landing in a heap on the floor, and took a moment to slow his breathing a little. Being back here helped. He looked around and the familiar unearthly glow of the sunlight through the lake against the windows soothed his nerves.

It seemed that the battle had not reached down here. The clock had fallen from its mantelpiece, presumably during some of the heavier artillery barrages, but otherwise it looked exactly the same. There was even some abandoned homework on a table at the far side of the room.

Of course, he would have to go out again soon and continue his search for Potter, but he couldn’t go any further without some kind of crutch. He turned right and hopped down the passage to the boys’ dormitories, barely noticing the way his breaths sounded more like sobs at this point. He collapsed gratefully through the door to the seventh years’ room, sinking onto his bed and allowing himself to lie back against the pillows for a moment.

It was glorious to let himself melt into this comfort. He choked on a breathless laugh. He had forgotten that comfort was even possible. He couldn’t stop himself from falling apart just a little bit, held up as he was by the soft mattress and protected by the achingly familiar curtains, the posts like sentinels rising from each corner.

With deep breaths, he gradually got himself back under control, wiping away the last tears with the back of his hand. Gods, he was so tired. When had he last slept? How many days had it been since the battle? He had passed out when his father had given him the old magic, and when the Path of the Penitent had triggered the vision of how he had wronged Potter, but neither of those counted as rest. The last time he’d slept properly was in this very bed, and that night he’d woken in the early hours to his Mark burning, and the news that Potter was back.

He could just close his eyes and let himself sleep for a bit, couldn’t he? But no, he wasn’t truly safe here. That Auror had sent a message and very soon, they’d be in here determined to find a way to capture him. Before that happened, he wanted a crutch, and he’d rather not use his new powers in front of anyone else.

He reached up and wrapped his hand around the post nearest his head. The touch of the polished wood instantly made the old magic reverberate through him, and he felt a fierce joy at possessing a form of magic that was bred into his bones, and could never be taken away from him.

A simple thought of what he needed was enough to set the post writhing as it remembered how it had felt to be a living tree. It sprouted a single branch, which grew strong and straight and into a distinctive crutch shape. As soon as it was finished, Draco reached up and took it, and the post obligingly dropped it for him and started growing another one.

After the post had delivered the second crutch, it twisted itself back into its old carved spiral shape, looking almost smug. The only difference now was that it had lost its dark varnish, and two knot marks indicated where it had grown the crutches.

Right. Now to get up and go out there again… as soon as he could gather his strength…

***

“Malfoy!”

Draco’s eyes flew open. A man was looming over him, shaking him - his uncle - Draco shouted and hit upwards, shoving at the man’s chest as hard as he could. The man staggered back a step, releasing his shoulder, and Draco rolled away, half-falling off the bed. He cried out as his left leg tried to take his weight, ignored the cramp and somehow managed to right himself. He grabbed his crutches from on top of the bed covers and backed up blindly until he came up against the pillar of the next bed over, brandishing the wooden crutches in front of him like weapons.

Potter was standing by his bed, flanked by the same two Aurors who had been in Malfoy Manor. Both the Aurors had their wands out and pointed at him. The female one looked particularly stern.

Draco sagged onto the bed, struggling to calm down. It wasn’t his uncle, of course not. The relief was strong enough to flatten the alarm of finding himself once again at wandpoint. After all, he knew that the Aurors couldn’t do anything to him.

Potter folded his arms across his chest and _glared_, and he hadn’t had Potter look at him like that since sixth year. It was ludicrously comforting to see it again.

“Hello, Potter,” Draco said, playing up his accent for old times’ sake. He was pleased to note that speaking was significantly less painful now that he’d slept a little. “What do you want?”

Potter bristled. The sight of an annoyed Potter was amazingly therapeutic. Draco drank it in.

“I want you to explain yourself, Malfoy! What’s going _on_ with you?”

Draco grinned. It had worked! One simple question and Potter had given him a task.

“I’ll tell you, Potter, although you’ll need to be more specific. Oh, and lose your bodyguards.”

Potter glowered even harder. Draco grinned wider.

“They’re not my - oh, whatever, Malfoy. You’re coming back to your cell, right now. Then you’re going to answer our questions.”

“I think not. That cell wasn’t very comfortable.”

Potter gaped at him, then snapped his jaw shut and went back to glaring. Draco let his grin fall and glared back, enjoying the feeling of stepping back into this role, this brief return of how easy the superior mask used to be.

Potter looked just the same as he ever had, and yet different. He was taller, skinnier, and obviously exhausted. But he still had that same _glow_, like he stood out more from the background than other people did. Draco could hardly be bothered to notice the Aurors behind him.

Very deliberately - it almost seemed slightly reluctantly - Potter drew his wand too, and now Draco had three wands pointed at him.

“Get moving, Malfoy, or I’ll make you move.”

Draco raised one eyebrow.

“You can try that if you like.”

Potter scowled. He adjusted his grip on his wand.

“Why are you so confident, Malfoy? You think you’ve got some Dark Magic that Tom didn’t?”

_Tom - ?_ Oh, right, the Dark Lord. Potter had called him ’Tom Riddle’ back in the Great Hall.

“Not Dark Magic, Potter. Elf magic.”

Draco kept his expression calm, even as he felt himself freeze up. He hadn’t meant to say that, especially not in front of the Aurors.

Potter’s frown was now one of confusion rather than anger.

“Did you say -?”

“Yes, I said elf magic,” Draco snapped. He was caught off-guard by a flare of panic, but stayed aloof thanks to long practice. “I’ll answer your questions. But not until you get rid of _them_.” He jutted his chin at the Aurors.

Then Draco realised where he was sitting. Crabbe’s bed. He glanced down to the foot of it and saw Crabbe’s cloak still tossed haphazardly over the covers. For a second a crushing pain **flared** up in his chest.

“And not here. Common room.”

He arranged one crutch under each arm and stood up. The crutches were exactly his size - they nestled neatly into each armpit, with a cross-bar for his hands to hold at just the right height. He carefully leaned his weight on them and swung his right foot forward. It was easy, and his left foot never had to touch the ground at all.

He had only taken one step - well, swing - forward when he saw Potter give a nod, and in unison, both the Aurors and Potter raised their wands higher.

“_Incarcerous!_” Three voices intoned at once.

Draco reared back as a multitude of thick ropes flew towards him, but just as before, the ropes hit an invisible barrier a foot from his face, and fell to the floor between the beds. Draco stared down at the tangle for a moment until the ropes faded out of existence, then raised his head slowly, expression as hard as he could make it.

Potter narrowed his eyes, not looking at all repentant.

“That was rude, Potter.”

Potter ignored him, instead half-turning to give the Aurors another nod. The male Auror held back, keeping his wand pointed straight at Draco, while Potter and the female Auror stowed their wands up their sleeves and started moving around Draco’s bed.

Draco fought the urge to back away as the Auror and Potter rounded the pillar of his bed and approached him. He did not want their hands on him - he wouldn’t let them drag him away - if the elf magic failed him then he still had his crutches, the wood felt friendly beneath his hands -

Potter reached for his right arm as the female Auror reached for his left. And once again, their hands couldn’t get within a foot of him.

Draco let out a slow, silent breath of relief through his nose. He never let his glare falter for an instant, even though Potter’s own eyes (always a brighter green than he remembered) were much more piercing from a distance of barely two feet away.

After a couple more failed attempts to reach Draco through the deceptively solid air, Potter shook his head slightly and first the female Auror and then Potter stepped away. Draco felt a surge of satisfaction that they were walking backwards, too wary to let him out of their sight.

He let his lip curl back in a sneer.

“If you are quite done attempting to assault me, I’m going to the common room. And provided you get rid of the Aurors, I _might _consider still talking to you.”

Draco squared his shoulders, planted his crutches, and swung at a dignified pace towards the door. He half-expected another attempt to try and stop him, but neither Potter nor the Aurors moved from beside his bed. He thought he heard the start of a hissed discussion as the door fell closed behind him.

Draco stopped at a green-and-silver sofa, and lowered himself awkwardly onto it. He didn’t think he’d been asleep long. From the lake-light coming in from the windows, he’d guess it was still before midday. He arranged the crutches on the sofa next to him and tried not to shiver as he waited. It was damp and cold without any fires lit down here, but at least half of his shakiness came from the adrenaline still coursing through his system.

After a short age, Potter and the Aurors emerged from the dormitory corridor. The Aurors moved away to the exit wall, but didn’t leave, instead turning to stand guard. Potter threw himself into an armchair opposite Draco.

“I thought I said no Aurors, Potter.”

Potter drew his wand and Draco tensed, even though he _knew _Potter couldn’t do anything to him.

“_Muffliato_.”

Draco frowned. He didn’t know that one.

Potter put his wand away, and saw Draco’s expression.

“It’s a privacy charm. They can’t hear us.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me, Potter?”

Potter shrugged.

“You don’t, I suppose.” He paused, as if chewing over the next thing he wanted to say. “Snape invented it. I’m surprised he didn’t teach it to you. It’s bloody useful.”

Draco felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Potter had said that Severus had been serving Dumbledore, but it had slipped Draco’s mind after everything else that had happened. This made it feel real. Severus truly had been helping Potter, teaching him his own secret spells. Somehow, all that animosity between his godfather and Potter had been an elaborate act. Draco felt something bitter clench in his stomach and had to look away.

So what if Severus had lied to him his whole life? Draco didn’t care. Snape was dead now, in any case, so it didn’t matter, did it? It didn’t.

After several long moments, Draco forced himself to turn back. He had to deal with Potter, and he couldn’t afford to lose focus like this.

Potter was watching his fingers as he picked at the fabric of the armchair like the barbarian he was. A strange thought flitted across Draco’s mind - could Potter be giving him space? He dismissed the idea instantly. Potter was a tactless oaf, there was _no way_ he had picked up on Draco’s distress.

Draco took a deep breath and plunged in, determined to regain the initiative in the conversation.

“Is Prudy okay?”

Potter looked up from the armchair and glared at him.

“Is that your house-elf’s name? What do you care?”

“I care a fair amount, actually. Prudy is my friend.”

“Ha. Sure. Only a Malfoy would use their _friend_ as a shield.”

Draco’s mouth twisted.

“I was bluffing, Potter. I just used your low opinion of me to my advantage.”

Potter glared some more.

“She’ll be fine, no thanks to you. _Someone _cursed her and gave her a bad knock to the head, but Madam Pomfrey didn’t seem worried.”

Draco stifled a sigh of relief.

“Goyle? I didn’t see his name on the list of…”

“He’s not dead. He’s been arrested, along with your parents.”

Draco nodded, letting himself relax a fraction. They were probably still in cells just down the hall somewhere, but he knew Potter wouldn’t confirm that.

Potter started fidgeting. Draco waited, letting the silence stretch on until…

“What happened to your leg?”

Draco smirked. Playing Potter was just too easy.

“The Fiendfyre. A griffin got a bite out of the back of my left calf while I was climbing those desks.” Draco reached down and pulled aside the tatters of his left trouser leg, and Potter leaned in almost reluctantly to look. He winced.

“You should get that seen to, it looks nasty.”

Draco laughed. _Now _they wanted him to have proper medical care.

“It already has been seen to, by a house-elf. It’s a curse wound. I doubt that there’s much else that can be done for it.”

Potter nodded. He was frowning, probably annoyed with himself for showing any concern.

“Anyway. Malfoy, what the fuck is going on? What was that spell you did? We analysed the remains in the cup, but it just seemed to be some kind of tree bark…”

“Oak, yes.”

“… _And?_”

“It was part of the ritual for invoking the Path of the Penitent.”

Potter glared at him again, clearly refusing to let Draco make him ask any more questions.

“Which is a form of ancient elf magic. It works for me because my family are descended from wood-elves.” Draco stopped. Once again, he hadn’t meant to say that last part. Apparently the magic had decided that ‘explain yourself’ meant revealing family secrets. Shit.

Potter’s eyebrows went up.

“Wood-elves, wait… So was that_ you_, then, with the murderous tree growing in the middle of your kitchen? I thought that didn’t fit with the rest of the decor…”

“Yes.” And now he was going to tell Potter about his powers, and there was nothing he could do about it. Draco felt stirrings of panic. This was worse than Veritaserum. At least a truth potion let you be evasive. “I can get wood to grow in any way I want, even dead wood. I should be able to affect water too, because I am also descended from a water spirit, but I haven’t had a chance to test that power yet. Did the tree actually kill my - him?”

“No. Just broke both his arms and legs.” Potter eyed Draco’s crutches warily. Smart boy.

“Pity.” The spell made him continue. “Although I suppose it’s nice to still be a person who hasn’t killed anyone.”

“What the hell did he do to you?”

Oh no. Oh shit.

“He… he…” As an experiment, Draco tried pressing his lips together to stop himself from talking. It wasn’t going to work - it was like physically resisting someone much stronger pushing against his mind. “He tried to rape me.”

Potter looked appalled. Served him right for asking.

“God… Isn’t he your uncle?”

Draco huffed a laugh, even though he felt dreadfully shaky. Gryffindors were so naive.

“Yes, Potter, he is. Dear old uncle Rodolfus. He’s always had a _special _place in his heart for his pubescent nephew. Most teenage boys actually, I think, but I was the only one around most of the time.”

“Why - why are you telling me this?”

“The Path of the Penitent. Like I said, it’s ancient magic. Strong stuff. I have to atone to each of the people I’ve wronged, by doing a task they set for me. You said ‘Explain yourself,’ and apparently that means that I - I can’t lie to you.”

Neither of them spoke as they took this in. This was much more serious than Draco had realised at first. He’d been so smug that he’d tricked Potter into giving him a task, and a non-life-threatening one at that. Now Draco wanted to curl up into himself, hug his knees to his chest so he could keep some sort of barrier between them. He had never been at someone’s mercy quite like this before - even with the Dark Lord he’d had Occlumency. Potter could ask him anything, and then do whatever he wanted with the knowledge. And what was a Malfoy without his secrets?

He would be a Malfoy who kept the line intact. That was all that really mattered.

But now Potter knew that Malfoy had no leverage; he had to answer Potter’s questions whether he wanted to or not. There was no reason for him to keep the Aurors out of it. Draco tensed, waiting for him to dismiss the privacy charm and call them over.

Potter was frowning into the middle distance past Malfoy’s right shoulder. He had drawn his wand almost absent-mindedly, and was now rolling it back and forth in his fingers in what was clearly a nervous habit.

“Hey - that’s _your _wand,” said Draco.

Potter looked down at it and smiled. “Yep.”

“You had it all along? Then why were you using mine?”

“My wand was broken. I - got it fixed after the battle.”

There was clearly more to _that_, but Potter was not under any magical obligation to tell him about it. Even answering Draco’s questions to this extent was surprising. Perhaps Potter’s noble ideals made him think he should be fair or something, given how much Draco had revealed. Well, Draco was going to have to rely rather heavily on Potter’s noble ideals now, wasn’t he, so he shouldn’t really sneer at them.

“So… do you… have mine?” Draco held his breath.

Potter untucked a hideous pouch from under his t-shirt where it hung around his neck, and reached inside it. He pulled out Draco’s wand.

Draco stared. It felt like every part of himself was being pulled towards that length of hawthorn. He had to fight to hold himself still. Gods. His _wand_.

Potter gave him a look that was almost sympathetic as he put Draco’s wand back into his pouch. Draco exhaled sharply, clenching his fists against the irrational surge of disappointment. Of _course _Potter wasn’t going to just hand it over. Draco was a war criminal with a Dark Mark and a mysterious ability to leave his cell whenever he wanted.

“It worked well for me.”

“I’m glad.”

Potter looked incredulous.

“I had the Dark Lord living in my house, Potter. You don’t think I’m glad he’s gone?”

“Yeah, I know. But - I know how bad it is to lose your wand.”

Draco wondered how Potter’s wand had been broken in the first place. He shrugged.

“It was a war. At the time I was livid, but I understand now how important it was that you took it. Giving up my wand was apparently my small sacrifice towards a world without the Dark Lord. Anyway, my mother lent me hers when I came back to school, which was a lot better than nothing. So it was her who went without.”

Potter nodded.

“So do you have the Elder wand in that pouch too, then? Actually, why aren’t you using it?”

Potter scowled.

“The Elder wand is gone, Malfoy. I got rid of it.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

The old, familiar rage sprang to life in Potter’s face. Malfoy recognised it intimately, felt a moment of satisfaction at having elicited it, and then remembered his vision and felt sick with himself.

“Sorry, Potter. You’re not an idiot. You’re just unbelievably - _noble_. Who gets rid of the Elder wand? If I’d known I was its master this year, you had better believe I’d have used it.”

Potter was staring at him as if he had never seen him before. Draco supposed that it was exceedingly strange to hear himself apologising, especially to this particular person. Then Potter sighed.

“I know you would have done. That’s why I had to get rid of it. It’s too dangerous.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Despite the vulnerability making his skin feel itchy, Draco was surprised to find that sitting here talking with Potter was a lot easier than he would have expected. He didn’t think Potter was going to call the Aurors over, and Draco was almost sure that Potter had decided this consciously and not just failed to realise the implications of Draco’s disadvantage.

“How did you get into Slytherin, anyway?”

He kept almost doing a double-take at the sight of Potter. He’d been gone for so long, become a myth. Having Harry Potter sitting in front of him - on a green velvet armchair in the middle of the Slytherin common room, no less - was surreal.

“We asked Slughorn for the password.”

“And the Auror showed you which wall to use?**”**

Potter grinned.

“She didn’t need to. I’ve been in here before.”

“_What?_”

Potter just smiled wider. Draco gritted his teeth against asking more questions. He wouldn’t give Potter the satisfaction of seeing his curiosity get the better of him.

“Anyway, Malfoy, we’re getting side-tracked. I want to know about this Path of the Penitent, how it works, why we can’t hex you, everything.”

Draco took a deep breath. “As you wish. A house-elf called Frona told me about it. She’s the grandmother of my house-elf Prudy.” Potter’s eyes went hard again at the mention of her name, but he didn’t interrupt. “Frona is ancient, and remembers her people’s ways. She said that the Path of the Penitent used to be invoked by house-elves back in the old days, when they served wizards and witches without being magically bound to us.”

“Wait - so house-elves used to be free?”

“Yes, they did. And very powerful. We couldn’t do much against them, actually, and we didn’t have much reason to trust them. When we first encountered each other, there were atrocities committed on both sides. It came to the brink of all-out war. Frona said that the Path of the Penitent came out of the negotiations to avoid that war. It’s a way for an elf to take personal responsibility for their wrongs, and atone for them directly. In the meantime, that elf cannot be held against their will, and afterwards, if they’ve walked the Path successfully, then they are allowed a fresh start. It’s an older way of settling things than the Wizengamot. It both predates and supersedes our wizarding laws. It only works if the elf has never committed murder, though.” Draco stopped, suddenly realising how close he had come to ruining his own chances by nearly killing Lestrange. Would that have counted, since it was self-defence?

Potter frowned.

“So you’re an elf?”

Draco almost rolled his eyes, and then remembered how it had felt to be clueless and nervous in a tailor’s shop.

“No! As I said, I am _descended _from a wood-elf and a water-spirit, which is supposed to be a secret, by the way. That’s where the bark came from - my family tree.”

Potter laughed briefly.

“That sounds like a bad pun.”

“A lot of the magical world does, Potter. Diagon Alley?”

Potter stared at him, and then actually covered his face and groaned.

“I can’t _believe _I never noticed that.”

Draco put everything he had into restraining a mean comment.

“All right. So what’s the deal, how does the Path itself work? You said something about tasks?”

“Yes. I have to atone to the seven people who I’ve most badly wronged. Each of those people need to set me a task, and I have seven cycles of the moon to make sure they’re all done. If I fail to complete all the tasks by then, I will start to get sick. If I’ve not completed the tasks by the end of the next full moon, then I will die, and then return as a ghost.”

“What? You could _die?_ Why the hell didn’t you just have a normal trial, you prat? I would have testified for you!”

Draco felt the air leave his lungs in a rush, as if he’d been winded. Potter looked a bit surprised himself, in fact. Draco automatically grasped for some sort of scathing comeback, but he couldn’t actually speak. He supposed that he shouldn’t feel _this_ astounded, given the way Potter had flown through Fiendfyre to save his life only days ago, but there was still no earthly reason for Potter to _not _want him to go to Azkaban…

After a few seconds, the spell kicked in, forcing him to answer Potter’s question.

“I couldn’t wait that long, for a normal trial, I mean. I need to be at the Manor every new moon.” He tried to stop himself continuing, but the spell clearly knew he hadn’t properly explained. “There’s a blood ritual I have to do every month, in a room in the Manor, to keep the spirits of my ancestors alive.”

“The spirits of your ancestors? A _blood ritual?_”

“Yes. Every head of the family, right back to when we were an actual oak tree, continues to live in me and in that room in the Manor, as long as I replenish their spirits every new moon. We’ve kept the line unbroken for over two thousand years. This is all also, obviously, a family secret.”

Potter was shaking his head slightly.

“That’s… completely _mental_, Malfoy.”

Draco bridled.

“What, so you wouldn’t want your father to still be alive if you could give him that chance?”

“Not if I had to use Dark Magic to do it, I wouldn’t!”

“It’s not Dark Magic! It’s blood magic, old magic! There’s a difference!”

“Doesn’t seem like much of a difference, Malfoy.”

“It _doesn’t hurt anyone!_”

“It hurts you, doesn’t it?”

“What? Oh, come on, Potter - it’s just a little cut and a few drops of blood, once a month. That’s all I have to do, and all I’m asking my descendants to do. Is that so much, for a chance at eternal life?”

Potter jumped up from the armchair and started pacing in front of one of the fireplaces. Draco felt a disorienting surge of bitter envy that he could no longer do the same thing.

“You know who else wanted eternal life, Malfoy? Tom.”

“You’re comparing me to the sodding Dark Lord now, Potter? I’ll say it again: I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Oh, well, congratulations, Malfoy. You’re not a murderer. What an achievement.”

“_Fuck_ you, Potter. I _know _I’ve done wrong and I’m going to atone for it, all right? And you have _no fucking idea _how hard it was to avoid killing anyone these last couple of years. The Dark Lord tried to make me, you know.” Gods, he wished he could stop talking. He closed his eyes. “He fucking had me up in front of a M-Muggleborn boy and his sister and his parents and he - he told me I had to practise the _Avada Kedavra _so I’d be ready to use it on Dumbledore. Fuck.” He couldn’t stop his voice from breaking, the words thickening with tears, and he _still _hadn’t explained enough to satisfy the spell. “I-I wouldn’t do it. So he _C-crucio_ed me, and them, on and off for a few hours, until I tried to do it, just to stop them being tortured any more. But I couldn’t. I said the words but it had no effect. I couldn’t - couldn’t mean it enough. I was too weak.”

He sucked in a shuddering breath as he was finally permitted to fall silent. He kept his eyes closed and wiped the tears away angrily. With an enormous effort, he forced himself to calm his breathing and open his eyes. He would _not _slump. He would keep his shoulders back and look at Potter, no matter how much he wanted to shrivel up and die.

Potter was standing frozen a little ways off to the right, looking at him, mouth open. Draco managed to glare at a spot just above his left shoulder. He really, really hoped Potter and the bloody Aurors might leave him alone now. He had barely eaten or drank or rested for days. He felt as if the confessions had gutted him, ripped him open for Potter to see every horrible thing he’d ever done. He was starting to shake. He needed this to be over, but he wouldn’t, he _would not_ beg.

“Are - are you all right?”

And now he had no choice. He had to explain himself.

“No. I need you to go, Potter. I can’t take this anymore.”

“Right. Um. I’m sorry, Malfoy.” Potter spoke softly.

It helped a little. Draco kept his mask in place, kept glaring.

“We’ll, er - we’ll leave. Um, for now. I’ll tell the others you’re staying put in Slytherin tonight, right? You’ll stay here?”

Draco gave him a stiff nod.

“Okay. And, um, I’ll arrange for some food to be brought to you.”

Another nod. _Please go, please go, please go…_

Potter backed away as if he could hear Draco’s internal chanting.

“I’ll - I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Then Potter turned and walked quickly out of the common room, followed by the Aurors.


	4. 5th May, 1998

_Draco is sobbing as he drags Goyle’s body along the floor. The light is a glaring orange and the heat is pressing him down. Goyle is so heavy and they are both so sweaty that Goyle’s arms keep nearly sliding out of his grip._

_He whips his head around as he drags Goyle further, trying to see which flame demons are closest, if any of them have seen him yet. He desperately tries to quiet his breathing, in case they can hear him and they’ll find him faster. He cowers against a stack of lost objects as a flame dragon soars overhead, setting the stack alight a few metres to his left._

_He has lost his mother’s wand. There would be no way to fight back anyway. He has no idea where the door is. He can see no further than the ten yards around him. His heart is beating in his chest so fast that he can feel it battering his ribs. There is nowhere to go._

_He will not give up. He will not give up._

_There is nowhere to go._

_The stack in front of him is not burning yet. It’s made mostly of old school desks, jammed together. It looks relatively solid. It is the only way to go._

_Goyle is so heavy. Draco knows he is not strong enough to climb and carry Goyle. His breath comes in snarls as he heaves Goyle up a desk anyway. He can feel wild surges of his own magic helping him move Goyle in rough starts up the nearly vertical pile._

_The fire that the dragon lit coalesces into a creature. A griffin. It lashes its lion-tail and stretches its wings. It turns its head and sees Draco halfway up the tower._

_Draco screams._

_***_

Draco screamed, and fell off the sofa.

For a moment, he could still hear the crackling of the fire, still see the orange glow - then, mercifully, his perception shifted and he realised that someone had lit a fire in the grate nearest to the sofa. He was lying on a thin rug, one of many placed over the stone floor of the Slytherin common room. It was completely dark outside and the fire was the only source of light.

He pushed himself up to a sitting position on the floor, his back against the sofa, and hugged his knees close. He felt physically sick. He gulped breaths, desperately trying to settle his stomach and lower his heart-rate. It was the same level of fear that he’d felt during the Fiendfyre the first time; he was absolutely pouring sweat, his magic was crackling wildly in the air around him, and Merlin, but he was terrified.

_You’re not there, you’re not there, it’s over. It can’t get you. You’re safe._

At least it took less time to convince himself of that than it did during one of his normal attacks. Maybe that was because the flashback dream had shown him such an explicit threat, and so all he had to do was get his brain to remember that that threat wasn’t actually real right now. In his normal attacks, there was nothing specific to point to, just an overwhelming sense of doom. Still, it was a full ten minutes before he felt sure that his body and mind were back under his own control.

He tested himself by lifting his head from his knees and looking at the fire. It was just the familiar common room fire, friendly and warming. He breathed a sigh of relief. At least he didn’t have a phobia to deal with on top of everything else.

He allowed himself to let go of his legs and uncoil. The movement brought back all his previous aches and pains, especially in his leg and the back of his head.

He absently massaged the dip in his leg with one hand while he looked around the room. The windows were just openings into blackness, and shadows flickered across the armchairs and tables. He spotted a tray of food on Potter’s armchair. He suddenly realised how hollow he felt. He hadn’t eaten in days.

He scooted over to the armchair on his bum. He remembered the tray being delivered yesterday, but it was as if through a haze. When the house-elf came he had pulled himself tighter into a foetal position on the sofa and held his breath until they were gone, so that they wouldn’t hear him hyperventilating.

He had slipped into an attack as soon as Potter and the Aurors had left. Draco had done nothing but cower on the sofa, sobbing and quaking, for hours. He didn’t remember when he had somehow dropped off to sleep, but he would guess it was at some point in the late afternoon. Now he thought it was probably the early hours of the night. At least he’d managed a proper stretch of real, not-spell-induced sleep.

He forced himself not to eat too fast, or too much. He had seen what happened when Ollivander had done that the first time Draco got home for the holidays in sixth year. Ollivander had nearly died. Draco had made a point to read up a bit about starvation after that. When he returned to Hogwarts that spring, he charged Prudy to continue the nightly ritual of sneaking food to Ollivander.

The tray held a simple meal of soup and bread rolls with a glass of water, and the plain heartiness was just what his tender stomach needed. A stasis charm had kept it all warm. Tucked under the soup bowl was a piece of parchment, and after Draco had finished half the soup - he wanted more but his stomach felt tight, like a warning - he read it.

_Malfoy,_

_Winky will be bringing you meals and seeing to your wounds for now. I’ll come back at 10am with an Auror to ask a few questions. It’ll be about the Path spell and about where the other Death Eaters might be hiding._

_HP._

Draco blinked. The scratchy handwriting was unrefined, but perfectly legible. Still, Draco doubted that he read that third sentence correctly. Why would Potter tell him what the questions were going to be about? He felt pretty sure that a fundamental principle of interrogation was to _not_ give the suspect a heads-up about what’s going to be discussed.

Although, of course, in Draco’s case, it didn’t matter how much warning he had about the topics, he would still have to tell Potter anything he asked. Draco’s chest tightened at the prospect of more of those forced confessions. Perhaps Potter was just messing him around with a bizarre double-bluff.

That didn’t seem likely somehow; Potter had always been more direct than that. A strange thought occurred to him. Could Potter’s intention be to _reassure_ \- to let Draco know that he wouldn’t be asking him to talk about things he didn’t want to? Draco reeled. It fit, it felt right, but it made no _sense._ Why would Potter want to reassure him?

For several long minutes he sat questioning whether this could really be the obscure piece of kindness it seemed to be. He ran his fingers over the parchment and felt the tightness in his chest ease, as if loosened by a sort of warmth. It appeared that, no matter how unbelievable his conscious mind found it, his subconscious felt fairly sure he could trust Potter and his unshakeable, ridiculous nobility.

Eventually, he roused himself, glad no-one was here to see him drag himself along the floor on his backside. He laid down on his back on the sofa and contemplated the gothic arches of the ceiling, holding the parchment against his chest and letting the remnants of terror from his dream fade.

He dozed, then woke up fully as the lake beyond the windows went from inky black to a light grey. He felt significantly better now that he had eaten and slept and knew with certainty that no-one could take him away to Azkaban. His head still ached, though, and his leg cramped just from the act of sitting up on the sofa; apparently it was stiff after lying still for so long.

He cursed and tried not to clench his teeth too much as the cramp slowly wore off. Gods, that was annoying. He grabbed his crutches and swung himself up to standing, manoeuvring himself to the bathroom.

Walking with the crutches was easy, but everything else required a lot more thought than normal. He nearly fell over when he started taking off his clothes, and hopping over the tiled rim at the base of the shower cubicle was awkward. He leaned the crutches against the wall outside the cubicle, then steadied himself with his hands as he balanced on one leg inside.

By some miracle, or some hasty castle repairs, the showers still had running water. It was even warm. Draco laughed and praised the Gods for the fantastic sensation of sloughing off all the dirt of the past few days. The water winding towards the drain was grey with ash. As Draco reached for Goyle’s hair potion (his own phial was always in the prefect’s bathroom) it could have been a normal school day, except that a mess of bruises were blooming across his body and his right leg felt wobbly from the strain of keeping him upright on the treacherous, slippery tiles.

Once he was clean, he leant back against the wall, trying to take some of the weight off his right leg. He regarded the stream of water speculatively. Reaching a hand out, he tried to access the Old Magic like he had with the wood, by imagining what he wanted the water to do -

He gasped as the water stopped falling abruptly at his hand, and started filling the space in the air above his palm. It looked almost as if he was holding a large, invisible bowl, except that the water became a pulsating sphere, like a dew drop as big as a quaffle, growing every moment as more water poured in from above. He pulled it gently out of the way of the shower’s stream, and turned it this way and that, admiring the way the light refracted. Then he imagined what he wanted again and laughed as the globe of water immediately twisted upwards, lengthening and spiralling until it took the shape of a cobra, rearing and displaying and spitting in his face.

He could have kept playing with the water for a lot longer, but the stream from the shower was becoming rapidly cooler and his right leg was getting quite uncomfortable. Reluctantly, he let his hand drop and the water snake in front of him immediately lost its form, splashing to the ground.

Every move cautious and calculated, Draco successfully negotiated the shower rim and getting towelled off. He wished he had his wand for a quick drying charm. He contemplated his stinking clothes and curled his lip. He wished for his wand again so that he could banish the ruined clothes, but instead he just left them where they were and grabbed his shoes, swinging himself naked along the corridor, into his room, and over to his trunk on one crutch.

He had to get dressed from a sitting position on his bed, which was tricky. His left sock proved particularly difficult, as he couldn’t push his foot down into it without his leg protesting. But as each element of his school uniform went on, he felt more like himself, more collected and capable. He wished for his wand _again _so that he could cast his usual hair-styling charms, but he’d just have to let it dry wavy.

He returned to the common room by way of the bathroom, picking up his old clothes with a grimace and throwing them without ceremony on the common room fire. The flames were nearly smothered but recovered gamely, and Draco watched, pleased, as his clothes were slowly destroyed.

He collapsed on a different sofa, since he couldn’t use a cleaning charm on the one where he’d slept and there were grimy smudges of ash on the silk. It was only after he sat down that he realised he was breathing hard. He didn’t feel exhausted, but certainly a lot more tired than he should have been given that all he’d done was have a shower and got dressed. Judging by the strength of the light now coming through the lake, it had also taken a lot longer than it normally did.

For a moment it struck him that, however uncertain his future was, he was most likely stuck as a cripple for life. Every stupid little task was going to be that much more difficult. He would have to be constantly guarding his movements to prevent his calf muscle from searing with pain.

His eyes prickled. It wasn’t fair. He’d survived so much, and he knew he had no right to expect to be unscathed, but having to limp around like this was so fucking undignified. He couldn’t bear to be seen clunking around on crutches and failing at basic tasks. He had no wand and he could barely even walk. He was pathetic.

He felt his breath begin to speed up and closed his eyes. No, no, he needed to calm down. He needed to not be a wreck when Potter came back. He took slow, deep breaths and tried to come up with any sort of positive angle on the situation. Well, that was easy, he could be dead. He could have been maimed somewhere more visible and lost his excellent Malfoy good looks.

_Pretty boy._

Draco shuddered. No, he wouldn’t think of that either. He counted his breaths up to ten, again and again, and kept a vicious rein on his thoughts.

He was grateful to be interrupted by the distinctive crack of a house-elf arriving.

The house-elf - Winky, Potter’s note said - wore a dress, which was surprising. Draco had never properly met any free elves before and now in the space of a few days he had met two of them. She placed the tray holding his breakfast on the nearest armchair and turned back to him, her wide brown eyes nervous.

“Harry Potter is wishing for me to heal you, sir.”

Draco nodded.

Winky took a deep breath. “If you is happy to lie down, sir…”

Draco obediently lay down on the sofa, and Winky snapped her long fingers and was suddenly holding a small wooden stool. It looked a bit like Frona’s. Did all house-elves have stools they could magically conjure?

She placed the stool by the sofa and hopped onto it, which gave her just enough height to be able to reach out her hands and hold them above Draco’s body. She closed her eyes and concentrated, a small frown-line forming between her brows. Draco noticed that her hands were shaking with a very slight, constant tremor.

“Sir is having a nasty knock to the head and a slight concussion, as well as many bruises, but Winky is not able to help with your leg, sir.”

She gave him a frightened look.

“That’s fine, Winky, I know it’s a curse wound.”

She nodded, looking relieved.

“Sir is happy to let Winky touch sir?”

“Yes, of course.”

She reached out hesitantly and drew a hand above the line of buttons on Draco’s shirt. They neatly undid themselves and his shirt folded back from his chest. She made short work of his bruises, laying her cool fingers on each in turn until they faded to nothing.

She stepped down from her stool and moved it up until it was next to Draco’s head. Then she hopped onto it again.

Winky hesitantly touched his forehead. Draco felt the low-level headache that he had almost stopped noticing starting to ease. He opened his eyes and saw Winky flinch back, as if expecting Draco to strike her for daring to touch his face.

Why was this elf so afraid of him? He was not her master, and without a wand, she was in fact much more powerful than him. Of course, house-elves as a rule had a healthy wariness of wizards, but most wizarding families had a much better relationship with their elves than the Malfoys. Could Winky know that somehow? Wait - yes, she could.

“Winky - do you work with Dobby here at Hogwarts?”

Winky’s gaze flew to his, and she stood stricken on her stool as her eyes began to fill with tears.

Oh, no.

“Is he - did he die, Winky?”

Winky’s lower lip wobbled and a squeaky sob escaped her as she nodded.

Draco’s chest clenched in pain. He knew exactly what must have happened - his fucking aunt. That knife of hers had disappeared into the swirl of apparition and at the time Draco had been worried it had hit Potter. But no, aunt Bella never missed her aim, and apparently in that moment she had wanted to punish Dobby for his treachery more than she had even wanted to please her Dark Lord.

“This was about a month ago, wasn’t it, Winky?”

She nodded and her whole face crumpled, her nose going even redder, the tears pouring down her cheeks. “Y-yes, Master M-Malfoy, but W-Winky is n-not knowing it until t-two days ago, sir!”

She crouched down on the stool and doubled over with grief, clutching her hands to her stomach and bawling. Draco’s chest clenched even tighter and he sat up, unsure how to comfort her. Eventually, he settled on laying one hand across her tiny back.

“I’m sorry, Winky.” Draco’s eyes stung and his throat felt thick. “Dobby was - was a very brave elf. I saw him, Winky. He fought a whole room full of his old masters to save Harry Potter. He saved everyone.”

Winky’s watery eyes peered through her fingers at him, and Draco took a deep breath and kept talking. “I heard his last words, I think. I remember he said, ‘Dobby is a free elf.’ He was - he was so proud of being free.”

Winky wailed in anguish, and buried her face against Draco’s knee.

“Dobby - Dobby raised me. He cared for me from when I was a baby and all through my childhood. He, I think maybe he - loved me.” Draco felt the burn in his eyes spill over, but he ignored it. “And I, I just - I never - father always - oh, Gods. I treated him so badly, Winky.”

He bowed his head, and let the tears fall. They cried together for several minutes. Draco had never felt pain like it - a bitter, stabbing regret. If only Dobby were alive, he would certainly have been among the seven people the Path would have sent him to. He could have made amends, atoned by doing Dobby’s task. And now, instead, he somehow had to live with himself.

When Winky finally lifted her head from Draco’s knee she left a large damp patch behind. Her face was red and blotchy. Draco half-expected her to start apologising and punishing herself for messing up his robes, but she appeared to have a bit more steel than that. She gave him a sympathetic look - much kinder than he deserved - and said simply, “Winky is leaving Master Malfoy to his breakfast now, sir.”

Draco nodded, and she stepped down from her stool, picked it up, and vanished with a crack.

_Prudy. _He had to tell Prudy. He wanted her to hear it from him. Yesterday, Potter had said that Madam Pomfrey had been taking care of her, so probably that meant she was in the hospital wing.

Draco pulled the armchair holding his breakfast closer to him and ate some toast mechanically as he thought about what to do. He had told Potter he would stay put here in Slytherin, but this was important. He had until ten in the morning before his interrogation, which he estimated was still in an hour or two. He wished he could cast a _Tempus_ to confirm it.

His chest felt empty after all that crying, and the toast was not very appealing. After a slice and a half, he gave up. His stomach was still too small to eat much anyway.

Well, best get to the hospital wing as quick as he could, and with luck he’d be back in time for Potter and he’d never need to know Draco had gone. It was unlikely to work out like that, but he needed to do this for Prudy. And for Dobby.

He grabbed his crutches and approached the exit to the common room.

He really didn’t want to go out there. There was no-one in the castle who would be pleased to see him. At least no-one would be able to capture him. He set his jaw, straightened his back as much as he could with the crutches and swung himself through the arch in the stone and into the corridor, which was mercifully empty.

The hospital wing was on the far side of the castle, on the first floor. He turned right and started back along towards the cells, trying to place his crutches quietly onto the stone. Before he got to the corner that would put him in sight of the Auror on guard duty, he turned off into a corridor on the left, which led to some stairs up to ground-level.

The stairs were a new challenge with the crutches, but they weren’t too hard. He was breathing hard by the time he reached the top, though.

The corridor here had obviously been part of the recent battle. Large chunks of masonry lay in a pile under a gaping crater in the wall on the left.

He had barely gone two steps when Peeves drifted out from the wall ahead, just beyond the crater.

Draco stopped. Peeves floated three feet above the floor, glaring at Draco. A smile twisted across his features with no trace of his normal glee.

“If it isn’t ickle Drakey Foulmouth, the Death Muncher. Mouldy Voldy’s little friend…”

Peeves started advancing towards him, and Draco took a hasty hop backwards, but the stairs behind him cut off any further retreat.

Peeves had stopped above the pile of rubble. His face looked _wrong_ without any mischief in his eyes.

“You’re not welcome here, Death Muncher. You killed the students.”

“No! No, I never - ”

“I must protect the castle, Draco.”

Draco blanched. It was probably the first time in the school’s history that Peeves sounded completely serious.

Peeves flew down to the pile of rubble, effortlessly hoisted a piece of stone the size of a cauldron up to his shoulder, and threw it at Draco.

Draco threw his left arm up, using his right crutch and leg to desperately fling himself out of the way, but it was point-blank range and Peeves, like his aunt Bella, had excellent aim. The stone crashed into his left shoulder and chest, crushing his arm in between them, and Draco’s feet left the ground with the impact. He fell back and kept falling past the level of the ground, and after a long moment his back crunched into the stairs, the boulder landing on top of him. It bounced off, avoiding his face by less than an inch, and Draco rolled brokenly down the rest of the stairs, landing in a heap on his side at the bottom.

Peeves appeared at the top of the stairs, holding another big chunk of stone. Draco cried out, or tried to, and his right hand planted his crutch against the floor. The Old Magic made his shattered bones grate together as it thrummed through him at top speed. In the time it took Peeves to soar down the stairs, the crutch had burst into a network of branches, forming a protective cage over Draco’s body.

Peeves screeched and hurled the stone down onto him. The branches splintered but held, and continued to thicken, weaving themselves across the remaining holes.

“PEEVES!”

There was a sound like Peeves hitting the wall. Draco could no longer see beyond the lattice of branches.

“What are you doing, Peeves?” Potter’s voice was low and horrified.

“Begging your pardon, oh most Potterful one. I was just doing what any decent soul would do, your Chosen-ness, sir!”

“The war is _over!_ There’ll be no more killing, understand? Now go. I’ll deal with you later.”

Draco was trying to catch his breath. His chest seemed to be full of shards and something was bubbling in his throat.

“Malfoy! Can you hear me? You’ve got to let me in, the branches are still growing, I can’t get through!”

With an effort Draco released his death-grip on the crutch. The Old Magic stopped making his body vibrate.

“_Diffindo! Reducto!_”

Light came through a gap in the branches.

“Jesus fuck. Hold on, Malfoy. _Diffindo, diffindo._”

Draco could hear his own breathing. It made a horrible, rattling, gasping sound. His whole left side felt warm.

The warmth flared into a burning fire as he felt Potter’s arms jostle him. He whimpered.

“Sorry - sorry, Malfoy - we have to get you to Madam Pomfrey, come on.”

Draco felt himself being lowered gently onto some kind of surface - an upturned part of the branch lattice.

“_Wingardium leviosa_.”

The lattice lifted him up off the ground, and Draco was dimly aware of Potter racing up the same stairs he had just fallen down. His eyes blurred, but he felt them turn left instead of right, to cross the Great Hall. _You’re going the wrong way, _he thought, and then gave way to the blackness.


	5. 6th May, 1998

Draco slowly opened his eyes. His eyelids felt heavy and gritty, and Draco recognised the fogginess in his head as an after-effect of Dreamless Sleep. He blinked, gradually surfacing.

He was definitely lying in a hospital bed, but the room didn’t look like the hospital wing. It still looked like Hogwarts though. Bright sunlight bathed the familiar grey stone of the arched ceiling in gold.

As his grogginess receded, the reason for being in a hospital bed slammed back into him with an almost physical shock. Shit. He brought himself up onto his elbows and looked wildly around the walls, panicking, expecting Peeves to emerge from one at any moment.

The sudden movement jarred his bones, and he gritted his teeth and laid back down as his whole left side throbbed. He took a careful deep breath and probed the pain. His bones seemed to be whole again, but fragile and tender. A dull ache had settled deep in his lungs.

He was in no shape to go anywhere. Fuck. He would have to lie here, flat on his back, and wait for Peeves to come back and finish the job at his leisure. His breathing immediately started to speed up. He cast about for something wooden, so he wouldn’t be completely defenceless, but there was no wood within reach - the bedstead was metal.

“Stop _moving_, if you please, Mr Malfoy!”

Madam Pomfrey. Draco reluctantly stopped groping under the bed for the slats below the bed-frame and lay down again - his body _did _hurt. He consciously resisted turning his head to the side. He heard her sensible shoes clopping on the flagstones as she hurried over to him.

Lying still did not feel wise. Didn’t Pomfrey _understand_, he had to get out of here! With an effort of will, he restricted his movements to his eyes, which darted everywhere. His gaze caught on the pearly, nearly-invisible sheen of a ghost floating above his bed, up near the ceiling, and his breath froze in his chest.

“Let me take a look at you…”

Madam Pomfrey began tracing her wand in complicated patterns above his shoulder and chest.

Draco tried to keep his breathing as quiet as possible as he grabbed Madam Pomfrey’s wand arm by the wrist. He stared at her, willing her to understand.

“Mr Malfoy -!”

Draco urgently brought his finger to his lips, flicking his eyes between her and the ghost floating above them.

Madam Pomfrey’s affront melted into a frown at his obvious terror, and she turned, being far too obvious as she did so, to see what he was looking at.

“Oh! It’s okay, that’s not Peeves!”

Draco heaved an involuntary sigh of relief, his eyes fluttering shut as he allowed himself to sink back onto the bed. It wasn’t him, it wasn’t Peeves, they were not about to die. He tried to will away the sick waves of adrenaline as they curdled in his bloodstream.

“It’s the Bloody Baron - he has been standing guard over you ever since you were brought in. He won’t let Peeves anywhere near you. Now you just relax while I finish my examination.”

Draco kept his eyes closed and managed to gradually calm his breathing. He could still feel the terror swilling around inside him, but it was muted for now. He opened his eyes again as Madam Pomfrey resumed talking.

“There we go. So, your left arm is fine, although your wrist joint was pretty much pulverised - all rebuilt now, of course. It’s your lungs and spine I’m more worried about. Your left lung was completely crushed and punctured at several points by your ribs, and you broke three different vertebrae. I’m confident that your spinal column has re-knitted itself correctly, but with these kinds of injuries it’s best to stay still and not aggravate the wound site for at least forty-eight hours. I tried to add some magical restraints to your bed to make sure you couldn’t move around too much, but they kept failing to form. Mr Potter tells me that you are currently under some kind of magic which prevents you being held captive, is that correct?”

Draco nodded.

Her clinical description of what had happened felt almost brutal. Madam Pomfrey had always been brusque, but this time felt different, like she was angry. Of course - she _was _angry, she hated him, but she was too much of a professional to let it affect her standards of care.

“Please - _no _movement of the neck, you must lie absolutely still! Do you think it might be possible to apply the restraints now that you are awake and able to consent to it?”

The thought of being tied down right now made Draco feel queasy. Even having Madam Pomfrey stand over him while he lay here was making him feel uneasy. “I don’t know, Madam Pomfrey, but I don’t want to try it - I don’t want to be any more incapacitated than I already am, just in case Peeves decides to, well - ”

Madam Pomfrey’s stern manner cracked slightly. “Mr Malfoy, I can assure you that you are safe here. The Bloody Baron is not going to leave your side. But of course, I do not blame you for feeling jumpy. I have been a matron for a long time, and I thought that after seeing a literal battle take place within the school walls that nothing could shock me any more - but for that poltergeist to have - to have actually _attacked _a student is simply intolerable.”

Draco blinked. “I’m not a student. I’m a Death Eater.” He suddenly realised that his hospital gown had short sleeves, and his Dark Mark was visible where his left arm rested on top of the covers. He shoved it under the covers instead, ignoring the increase in throbbing from his shoulder.

Madam Pomfrey flinched. “No sudden movements with your arms, Mr Malfoy, you mustn’t jar your spine - or I will have to sedate you again. And no matter what else you may be, Mr Malfoy, you are still a student under my care. Besides, no-one deserves to have an undead vigilante deciding whether one lives or dies.”

“How are you going to _stop_ him?” Draco couldn’t help the slight tinge of hysteria in his voice. He remembered the crunch of the boulder against his chest, his body’s instinctive understanding that he was close to death. In the whole war, the only other time he’d suffered injuries of that severity had been Potter’s _Sectumsempra_. And for an attack to happen _now_, when he had let himself believe that the killing was over… He was so stupid. He had thought he was safe.

Madam Pomfrey crossed her arms. “Well, first of all, as I keep saying, the Baron is protecting you.” She nodded up at the ghost, who became more visible for a moment. Draco met his eyes. The grim Slytherin ghost never talked to any of the students and he didn’t talk now, but his haunted gaze met Draco’s and he gave him a short nod, before turning back to face the rest of the ward.

“Secondly, both Mr Potter and Headmistress McGonagall spent yesterday with Peeves, making sure he _fully _understands that the battle is finished and that we don’t need him to defend the castle anymore. And thirdly, he knows not to mess with my hospital wing.” Madam Pomfrey crossed her arms with a glower and for a moment Draco could almost see her magic crackling around her.

Draco felt a little better. “This isn’t the hospital wing, though.”

Madam Pomfrey sniffed. “No. It was badly hurt - I mean, it sustained severe structural damage in the battle. We lost our entire supply of healing potions, I have had to borrow from the emergency store at St Mungo’s. So unfortunately, I haven’t been able to be of much use, at a time when I am needed the most.” Draco could see that her eyes had started to shimmer with tears of frustration.

“Well, you saved my life.” _Although you may not think it worth very much._

Madam Pomfrey turned to look at him. “Yes. It was a near thing too, Mr Malfoy. Your injuries were catastrophic. But I have not lost my touch yet.”

Draco almost wanted to smile at her. “I’m glad you were here.” Then he felt awkward. This was getting far too Hufflepuff. “So. What you’re saying is that the only punishment Peeves will be receiving is a strict telling-off.”

Madam Pomfrey’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Essentially, yes. There’s no way to remove him from the castle, I’m afraid. Believe me, a few people have tried in the last thousand years and it never ends well for them.”

Draco nodded. He already knew that, from when he’d read _Hogwarts: A History_. Peeves was a permanent fixture. At least he couldn’t _leave _the castle. That was the only way Draco could truly be safe, he realised - he had to leave Hogwarts. It was only now that he was facing the prospect of permanent exile that he realised how much he would miss it.

Where could he go? The Manor was also too dangerous - there could still be Death Eaters out there like his uncle who would risk the chance of popping in for a spot of looting. Besides, the Manor held too many memories. He would visit it at the new moon for the ritual, of course, but until then he really didn’t want to go anywhere near it.

There was the family villa in the south of France, but he had to be in the country to continue on the Path and atone to his victims.

Madam Pomfrey had lost the last of her hostility, and looked at Draco with open sympathy. “Also, Mr Malfoy, I wanted to discuss your leg injury. Mr Potter said it was inflicted by a Fiendfyre creature?”

Draco almost moved the leg in question, but remembered just in time that he was supposed to be staying still, and that the muscle would seize up.

“Yes. A griffin.” Why did it matter what animal it was? He sounded stupid.

Madam Pomfrey nodded, lips pursed. “Well, as you have probably deduced, I’m afraid that as it is an injury inflicted by the darkest kind of curse magic, there are no spells or potions which can heal it - ”

“Yes, I know - ”

“ - the only thing that would have worked is fresh phoenix tears, while the wound was new. How incapacitating is the wound? How much pain are you in?”

“Honestly, it’s not that bad. I can deal with it.”

“Mr Malfoy, I never thought you were the type to martyr yourself.” Her eyebrows raised over a pointed look. Draco recalled a certain hippogriff incident in third year and squirmed. Her voice was soft as she went on. “You have received a life-changing disability, Mr Malfoy. I have some ways I can help. But you need to tell me the details.”

Draco took a deep breath. “It aches a little, pretty much all the time. If I put any weight on it or even move it too quickly, it cramps up. It takes about a minute for the cramp to subside. I was using crutches to walk around.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “And how bad is the pain, when your leg cramps?”

“Pretty bad. It’s no _Cruciatus,_ but I can’t really just ignore it.”

Pity flickered in her eyes again for a moment before being hidden under her ever-present practicality. “Right. I believe that, while the missing muscle can never be restored, the remaining muscle can be strengthened. It cannot be strengthened directly with magic, so it will involve a muggle technique called physiotherapy, which consists of several types of guided exercises - ”

“What? You want me to use _muggle medicine_?”

Her stern expression was back. “Yes, Mr Malfoy, I do. I know a very good muggle practitioner to whom I have referred you.”

“You’re sending me to a _muggle _Healer? But the muggles cut people up! Their medicine is barbaric!”

Madam Pomfrey’s lips twitched. “Fortunately, physiotherapy is not the same as surgery. And they don’t just cut people open while a patient can feel it, by the way. The muggles have some very clever techniques for blocking pain.”

Draco shuddered. ‘Clever techniques’ probably meant dosing someone with alcohol and then knocking them out with a firm uppercut to the jaw. The idea of letting a muggle get close to him made his breath start to come short. He almost said, ‘My father will hear about this,’ but bit that back and substituted with a weak, “I am not at all pleased with this.”

“Too bad. I’ve made you an appointment for this Friday. This letter contains the details.”

Draco took the piece of muggle parchment that she held out, holding it awkwardly in front of his face without moving his head. It was too smooth and the letters on it were unnaturally even, not hand-written. It informed him that this muggle Healer was called Dr. Anne Liston and worked in a place called Harley Street, in London.

“Are there no other options, Madam Pomfrey?”

She pursed her lips. “I really do think this is the best option, Mr Malfoy. But if the physiotherapy fails to help and the pain interferes too much with your daily life, there is always the option of amputation below the knee, and replacement with a prosthetic. That is not something any Healer would do before exhausting all the alternatives, however.”

Draco had a sudden memory of Wormtail’s silver hand. He balked at the idea of deliberately cutting his leg off, but that hand had worked perfectly for Wormtail - until it had strangled him. It was still worth looking into; he needed to speak to his father, he might know how the silver hand was created. Surely he would be permitted to correspond with his father in Azkaban, even if he couldn’t visit?

Draco stared up at the ceiling and wondered if his parents had been transferred away from the Hogwarts dungeons yet.

“What day is it today?”

“What? Oh. It’s Wednesday, dear.”

Wow. The days since Saturday had been a blur. He hadn’t realised so many had gone by.

“How long was I out for?”

“We had to put you under several complicated Stasis Charms to induce a magical coma. We finished fixing you up at about dusk, and you’ve been under an extra-strength Dreamless Sleep potion until now. So all in all, about twenty-eight hours.”

Draco nodded without thinking.

“Keep your neck _still_, dear, _please_. So, now you’re well enough, you’ll have lunch and then there are some people who want to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“Mr Potter, the Headmistress, and the Minister.”

_Oh, is that all? _Draco’s left fore-arm itched. He couldn’t keep it hidden under the covers forever. He wished he had his wand to cast a glamour over the Mark. He really didn’t want to draw Madam Pomfrey’s attention to it, but he had to do something about it before the bloody Minister of Magic got here. He withdrew his arm from the covers, wrapping his right hand over as much of the Mark as he could.

“Madam Pomfrey - please… could you help me cover this up?” He kept his gaze trained on a vaulted corner of the ceiling.

“Oh - of course, dear.” Her tone was much warmer than he expected. He glanced at her and she smiled at him, and he thought it was just possible that she hated him a little bit less than before.

***

Draco had just finished an awkward meal (lying flat on one’s back while eating a sandwich was not very comfortable or dignified) when the first of his visitors arrived. It was Potter. He was panting as if he’d run all the way there.

Before even saying a word, Potter handed over a sturdy, dry twig. It was about the length of a forearm and felt almost like a wand in Draco’s grip. The Old Magic hummed happily in his belly at the touch.

“Woah,” said Potter.

“What?”

“Your eyes - they went all black for a second.”

“… They did?”

“Yeah, and - your ears went pointy.”

“Ah. Right. That’s - ”

“The wood-elf thing?”

“Exactly.”

“Huh. Guess it’s really true, then.”

“Yes, Potter. I can’t actually do anything _but_ tell you the truth at the moment. Anyway. Why the stick?”

“Isn’t that obvious? I thought you’d want something, you know, so you can defend yourself.”

Draco blinked at him. There was a light sheen of sweat across Potter’s forehead. Once again - just like that note yesterday - this was Potter being _kind _to him, in a way that was indirect but really very thoughtful. And also quite stupid.

“You’re _arming _me?”

“No! Well - technically, I suppose. I just don’t think there’s anyone around who you’d attack right now, except for Peeves.”

Draco felt a shudder grip his chest for a moment.

Well. Let it never be said that Malfoys didn’t have manners. “Thank you, Potter.” And then, because of the bloody Path spell, he added, “I’m really quite confused about why you’d be nice to me, but I like it.”

Potter laughed. Draco could feel himself blushing and he glared at the ceiling. He had thought the task ‘Explain yourself’ was non-lethal, but he’d likely die of embarrassment well before it was over.

Potter hesitated, and then sat down on the edge of Draco’s bed. Draco wondered for a moment why he hadn’t just taken the chair placed right by the bed-side, but then realised it was so that Draco could still easily see Potter’s face without having to move his head.

“This is so weird, Malfoy. Anyway, why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

“Do I _really _have to explain that? Really? Because the spell will make me, you know.”

“Okay, okay, I know, all the history between us, there was a war, I understand.”

Draco sagged with relief as the compulsion to start talking faded.

Potter caught sight of the clean white bandage around his left forearm and frowned. “Are you hurt? I thought Madam Pomfrey had fixed your wrist - ”

Draco grit his teeth. “You _can’t _be that thick, Potter.” The spell immediately rebelled. “All right, what I actually mean is that it seems completely obvious to me. It’s the damn Mark, I don’t want anyone looking at it.”

“Oh. Right. I should have thought of that. But look, okay, in my defence, _you_ didn’t see that arm with shards of bone poking out of it.”

Draco winced. At least his memory of the aftermath of the attack involved a general impression of shattered agony, rather than anything specific.

“Anyway.” Potter looked awkward. “I thought the Path of the Penitent thing stopped people from hurting you?”

“It stops people from holding me somewhere against my will. Apparently it doesn’t care if someone wants to hurt me or kill me, which is a shame. I was rather hoping that it would offer me more protection than that. I expect a lot of people are going to want to finish what Peeves started, and…” Ugh. Did he really have to say it? “That scares me.”

Potter squirmed. “Well. That’s understandable.” He rubbed his nose for a moment. “Sorry. I have to remember not to ask so many questions…”

And yet _again _Draco was caught off guard. Potter was deliberately trying to not take advantage of the spell. It went so against how Draco himself would have acted that he wanted to cringe. His gratitude mingled with a hot rush of shame and he fought to stop it turning into desperate, defensive anger. All this time he’d been so sure that Potter was a dickhead, but here he was, proving himself to be a genuinely decent person over and over again.

“It’s all fucking true, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The - heroics! I bet even the bloody basilisk is true, right?”

“Well, yeah, of course.”

“Of _course_? Sure - of _course _a twelve-year-old took out a basilisk. I was in no way justified in being sceptical about that.” He rolled his eyes. “And the spell wants me to tell you that was sarcasm, in case you couldn’t guess. Fuck. I can’t even be sarcastic.”

Potter snorted. “This could actually kill you, couldn’t it?”

“Yes. (That was sarcasm.) But then you’d probably come in and save my life. _Again._” Which reminded him. “That’s three times now. Bloody hell.”

“Three times what?”

“Three life-debts I owe you, Potter. One for the fire, one for that Death Eater in the corridor during the battle and one for stopping Peeves from crushing me. It really pisses me off.”

Potter shaped his mouth into the ‘W’ of ‘Why?’ before biting his lip.

Draco appreciated his effort, but unfortunately it didn’t make a difference. The spell seemed to interpret Potter’s facial expression as being a question. He sighed. “It pisses me off because it puts me in a very weak position. Malfoys aren’t supposed to be indebted, we’re supposed to be the ones who are owed. But actually it makes little difference right now, since I’m in pretty much the most vulnerable position possible in any case. You can take any information you want from me, and tell anyone, and use it all against me.”

Draco noted that he was becoming very slightly inured to the wash of exposure every time he had to explain himself to Potter. His lungs felt raw and his heart was beating fast, but so far in this conversation Potter was yet to make him feel actively _bad_.

“I’m not going to use anything against you, Malfoy. Well, I did agree that I’d ask you about the other Death Eaters, and you’ll need to explain the Path thing properly to the others, too, but I - I didn’t tell them about the wood-elf thing.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “How did you explain the murder tree, then? And the shield I made when Peeves was after me?”

“Oh, well. No-one’s asked about the murder tree, I think maybe they assumed that Malfoy Manor is just like that. But I said that you used accidental magic to make that lattice-shield. They seemed to buy it?”

“Why didn’t you tell them?”

“You said it was a family secret, right?”

“Yes, but…”

“Look, I had some time to think it over, Malfoy, and I don’t want to use this enforced honesty thing against you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“_Fair? _It’s completely fair. I owe you, Potter, and not just for the life-debts. I’ve been shitty to you since the first time we met and this is the way I’m atoning. This is my punishment, don’t you get it? I’m not going to Azkaban. This is what I’m doing instead. So if it sucks sometimes, then good. That’s how it should be. That’s fair.”

Potter was frowning, and was about to say something, but just then the door opened and the other two visitors arrived. Potter hastily stood up from where he’d been sitting on the mattress.

Professor - no, Headmistress - McGonagall stepped into Draco’s field of vision near the foot of his bed, followed by a tall, bald, black guy, who was presumably Shacklebolt. His undeniable presence made it seem as though he had been Minister for Magic for years rather than a few days. Draco slipped the twig under his covers and wished very much that he could sit upright to face them.

“Headmistress. Minister.” He was surprised when they both gave him a polite nod.

Madam Pomfrey came over to join them, and summoned three extra chairs. She and Potter sat on the bed’s left side, the headmistress and minister on the right, far enough down the bed that Draco could just about keep them all in view.

“Malfoy,” said McGonagall. He saw her eyes flick to the bandage on his arm, but she made no comment. “I am very glad to see you looking better.” Her voice sounded slightly rougher than usual. Draco was astonished to see that she genuinely meant it. “I cannot even begin to sufficiently apologise for what Peeves did to you. I’ve never heard of him attacking anyone like that.”

“Well.” _I deserved it_. Thank Merlin the spell didn’t care about him telling the truth to McGonagall. “I heard Peeves got told what for, so it’s all completely sorted out now, isn’t it.” Sweet, sweet sarcasm.

Some of the habitual hardness returned to McGonagall’s face. Good. “Believe me, Malfoy, if we could evict Peeves it would have been done about eight hundred years ago. After Potter and I had our little chat with him, though, I think he does understand that he’s crossed a line. Still, we cannot rely on it. I’m afraid you must leave the school for a while for your own safety, Malfoy. In a few months Peeves will have forgotten his crusade, especially when the school gets back to normal. He is the kind of creature who lives in the moment. So, I am confident that you will be able to return and complete your NEWTs.”

Draco took a breath. The thought of being able to see Hogwarts again was surprisingly soothing. But… He looked into McGonagall’s worn face. “You’d let a - a Death Eater come back to school?”

Her nose wrinkled slightly, but she nodded. “I doubt any student has had a chance to focus on academics this year, particularly those who were - directly involved.” Her gaze moved to include Potter. “All the seventh years are welcome to return for another year, so that you can properly finish your education.”

Draco boggled at her. He had tried to _kill the headmaster_. If anything deserved expulsion, that was it. It even ranked above Potter’s attempt on Draco’s life; even at the time, despite being busy bleeding to death on the floor, it had been obvious that Potter hadn’t known what he was doing. This level of forgiveness was, in fact, a fitting tribute to Dumbledore’s brand of insanity. He wanted to tell McGonagall so, but he didn’t want her to change her mind, so he didn’t know what to say.

Potter looked over at Shacklebolt for a moment before mumbling, “Thanks, Professor, I’ll think about it.”

Shacklebolt cleared his throat and spoke for the first time, in a calming rumble. “So, it appears the first order of business is to discuss where you will stay for the summer months, Mr Malfoy. Since Malfoy Manor is currently in the hands of the Ministry - ”

“It isn’t.” Draco could feel himself go pink at his clumsy interruption of the Minister, but he needed to set this straight. “I am now Lord of the Manor, and as I am not in the Ministry’s custody, the Manor and all the assets of the estate are under my ownership.”

Shacklebolt raised his eyebrows and McGonagall shifted in her seat. Draco didn’t look to see how Pomfrey or Potter were reacting. The silence began to get awkward.

“I was not aware you had come into your inheritance.” Shacklebolt’s deep tone of voice was impossible to read. Draco knew he would be thinking of the lost reparations that they would no longer be able to force his father to pay.

“It was - rushed. But I am of-age.” He forced himself to meet Shacklebolt’s eyes with proper Malfoy imperiousness. It felt a little forced from his prone position in a hospital bed.

Shacklebolt looked at him levelly for a few long seconds, until Draco couldn’t help but blurt, “Of course, I am grateful to the Ministry for taking the necessary steps to secure the Manor, and I am happy to allow the Aurors full access to the premises to support them in so doing.”

Shacklebolt smiled slightly. “My thanks, Lord Malfoy.”

Draco heard Potter make a slightly strangled sound.

“We come back to the original point. I presume that, once the Manor is declared safe, you will take up residence there?”

Draco felt himself go cold. Living back at the Manor… He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “No. I would… prefer an alternative.”

“Do you have any friends or relatives you could stay with?”

The remnants of his extended family flashed through his mind. Literally every one of them was now dead or incarcerated - no, except for his aunt Andromeda. Whose daughter had just been killed in the battle in which he had fought on the wrong side.

His friends… Parkinson? Zabini? Nott? They would all have their own problems happening around now, and Draco doubted they’d be interested in having anything to do with him in the current post-war political climate. He didn’t blame them.

“I find myself somewhat. Somewhat isolated, sir.”

Shacklebolt nodded, face still impassive.

“I can recommend some pleasant hotels - ”

“You could stay at my house.”

Draco jerked his head round, ignoring Madam Pomfrey’s admonition at the movement. Potter’s light brown cheeks were flushing darker. McGonagall was also looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“You have a _house_, Potter?” It was the less-surprising thing to focus on.

Potter shrugged, failing to look nonchalant. “You know how it is. Early inheritance, the perk of losing one’s parental figures before turning twenty.”

Madam Pomfrey winced. Draco felt a strange stab of anger and sympathy. He couldn’t decide if Potter had insulted him.

“Potter…” McGonagall looked like she was struggling to decide which words to use. “Are you - quite sure you wish to offer Malfoy your hospitality? He has the means to rent temporary accommodation.”

Potter spoke to the foot of the bed, avoiding everyone’s incredulity. “Oh yeah, um, of course.” Potter quite obviously wished he’d never said anything. “That’d probably make more sense, you know, Grimmauld Place is horrible, even I don’t want to stay there much.”

“Wait - Grimmauld Place? The Black town-house?”

Potter looked up at him. “You know it?”

Draco snorted. “Yes. My mother was a Black, Potter. As the last remaining male of the Black line, if my cousin had died without a will, _I_ would have inherited Grimmauld.”

Potter’s eyes widened. “Wow. That wouldn’t have caused problems at _all_…”

Shacklebolt gave a melodious chuckle. Draco wondered what in-joke he was missing, and why Shacklebolt and Potter had one.

That wasn’t the most important thing to focus on, though. Draco needed to decide what to do with Potter’s offer. He expected it would be fewer than ten seconds before Potter withdrew it, and Draco needed to consider the possible advantages before he lost the opportunity. He didn’t have time to think it through thoroughly, though - Potter was already opening his mouth.

“I’ll do it. Stay at Grimmauld Place, I mean.”

Potter stared at him, and Draco flushed. He had to explain more. “I’m curious to see a family home. And it might provide a - place to work on your task together. And…” This wasn’t going to go over well. “You’re a very powerful political ally, Potter, and I don’t have any of those left. Maintaining a connection with you could be extremely useful to me.”

Potter frowned. “I’m not going to let you _use _me, Malfoy - ”

“No, I know. I’m not stupid enough to think you actually _would _be my ally. Just the tacit approval of hosting me would go a long way towards counteracting the hatred I will receive as a Death Eater walking free. It should help to prevent another vigilante assassination attempt at least.”

Potter huffed, but appeared somewhat appeased. “I won’t even be there. I’ll be staying at Hogwarts at the moment, to help with the rebuilding.”

“Still. People will see you’ve offered your protection.”

“Grimmauld Place does have some security issues,” said Shacklebolt. “I’m afraid that the Death Eaters gained access to the house at some point during the last year.”

“Oh. Yeah. We were apparating - I’d forgotten that.”

“I do not know what state they will have left it in, but I believe that Voldemort himself went through it, looking for clues of your whereabouts.”

Potter winced and hunched into himself. Apparently he cared about this house a bit more than he said he did. “Kreacher’s going to be devastated.”

“Kreacher?” asked Madam Pomfrey.

“My house-elf.”

Shacklebolt nodded. “I don’t think the house is beyond reach, although it will take a lot of work to restore it. I can spare a curse breaker to help you reclaim it, and then I would be happy to help in dismantling the previous Fidelius Charm and casting a new one for you.”

“Oh - thanks - but there are loads of other things you’re needed for…”

“Harry, it is the least I can do. I am sure you could do with a place where you are guaranteed some privacy nowadays.”

Potter bit his lip, and nodded.

“I’ll send Bill Weasley over, I know he’d be happy to help. Tell me as soon as he’s finished and I’ll arrange the ceremony to set up the new Fidelius. In the meantime, stay alert - I doubt it would occur to the remaining Death Eaters to risk turning up there, but you never know. Some of them may be specifically hoping to get their revenge on you, or to claim the Elder Wand.”

Potter grimaced. Draco was beginning to have second thoughts about putting himself so close to the line of fire, but he wasn’t going to back out now.

“I’ll be careful,” said Potter. Draco wanted to make a snide comment about the likelihood of caution and Harry Potter ever being found within sight of each other, but stopped himself.

“Mr Malfoy will be well enough to be moved by this time tomorrow,” said Madam Pomfrey, “and in the meantime the Baron will continue to stand guard.” She nodded up at where the ghost still floated, bobbing ever so slightly up and down. He returned Pomfrey’s nod, impassive.

“That should be sufficient to deter Peeves,” said McGonagall. “I will see to it that your possessions are packed and your trunk ready to go by tomorrow, Malfoy.”

“Thank you, Prof - Headmistress.”

Shacklebolt brought his hands together.

“Excellent. I am glad that is sorted out. Now, I have some questions regarding this spell you are currently under, Lord Malfoy. Harry tells me that it is called the Path of the Penitent? I confess, I had never even heard of it, and my assistants have been unable to find mention of it.”

“No. It is… very ancient magic.”

“And the effects, in summary - correct me if I’m wrong - are to prevent you from being locked up, to clear you of all crimes in the eyes of the law, and to require you, under pain of death, to complete by the end of seven lunar cycles an act of penance for each of the seven people you have most wronged?”

Draco swallowed, thinking of Dobby. “Well, to be precise, the seven people I have most wronged who are still alive, sir. And if any of the tasks are incomplete after seven lunar cycles, I have one final lunar cycle to finish them, while getting increasingly ill.”

“And you have already received a command from Harry to, what was it, ‘explain yourself’? Which has resulted in you being unable to lie to Harry?”

“Yes, sir.” Draco flushed, and didn’t look at Potter. He felt a ridiculous flicker of guilt for not making Potter aware of his opportunity to choose a task to ask of him. Which was stupid. It had been a sound tactical decision at the time. The way that it had back-fired on him so badly was his comeuppance for tricking him, he supposed.

“I see. Do you have any ideas of who else, apart from Harry here, will be on the list?”

Draco could feel himself wanting to hide. He was far too exposed while lying in a bed. He didn’t want to talk about which people he had hurt the worst. He had some fairly good ideas, but he didn’t fancy rehashing all the bad things he’d done with the Minister and the Headmistress and the Saviour of the Wizarding World. And what if he forgot someone obvious? How bad would that look?

“Why do you need to know, sir?”

Draco was surprised to see Shacklebolt look awkward for a moment. “I thought it may make it easier to have a Ministry intermediary to approach these people and explain the situation for you. It would also help in keeping this contained. I am keen to make sure that the existence of this Path of the Penitent stays somewhat of a secret. I don’t fancy having others trying this same option to evade the regular system of justice.”

Draco didn’t think this was the full reason. He was not going to mention that the Path of the Penitent was exclusively house-elf magic, and the only reason he could use it was because his inheritance had connected him to his wood-elf heritage. “You want to approach them first so you can brief them on what to ask me to do, right?”

The Minister stayed silent.

“Thought so.”

“Hang on, you want the Ministry to control what tasks people give him?” said Harry. “Shouldn’t that be between him and them?”

“Harry - ideally yes, of course; but this is a rare opportunity to gain the full cooperation of a Death Eater. Lord Malfoy’s help could prove invaluable.”

Draco gripped the sheets under his hands and tried to breathe evenly. _How dare he?_

“No - wait - Malfoy isn’t… Malfoy would already help you! You don’t need to force him into it!”

Where had Potter got _that_ idea from?

Shacklebolt looked at Potter, at Draco, then back at Potter. Draco could not interpret his calm expression.

“Harry, if you would be willing to confirm that with Lord Malfoy yourself, then that would certainly satisfy me.”

“Right. Um.” Potter turned to him, looking slightly sheepish. “Malfoy, you’d help the Ministry with all this - post-war stuff, right?”

Draco’s chest still felt warm with anger. He wasn’t sure what he was about to say; indeed, he was quite tempted to tell the Ministry to go fuck themselves. He opened his mouth and let the spell lead him. “To an extent, yes. Provided they didn’t want me to turn on my parents, or put myself in danger, or bankrupt the estate, or distract me too much from completing the tasks for the Path. Also they would need to treat me with a modicum of respect. I know it’s more than I deserve as a - a Death Eater, but I am not a generous fool and I won’t do favours for people who treat me like dirt.”

McGonagall’s eyebrows rose. Pomfrey coughed. Draco could feel his face burning. Gods, he hated honesty. Still, Potter had only asked him so that he could help Draco avoid being coerced by Shacklebolt.

Shacklebolt nodded. “Those conditions seem eminently reasonable to me, Lord Malfoy, and I am happy to meet them. And if we are therefore in agreement, then I would like to start with the most time-sensitive issue: what you may be able to tell us about where the other Death Eaters are hiding.”

For the next two hours Shacklebolt and Draco discussed every Death Eater not yet dead or captured, followed by everything Draco knew about the location and defences of various Death Eater safe-houses, as well as Malfoy Manor and what traps may have been set there. McGonagall took her leave immediately and Madam Pomfrey soon left them to it, coming over now and again to bring Draco a drink of water that he had to sip through a straw, or silently cast some diagnostic spell over him. Potter listened avidly to every detail of the conversation, but did not once ask Draco anything, although he obviously wanted to several times. He had not known Potter was capable of such restraint, and felt surprised that Potter bothered to spend the effort summoning it for _him_. As promised, the questioning never strayed towards Draco’s parents, and Shacklebolt seemed to trust that Draco was answering honestly.

By the time they finished, Draco’s lungs ached fiercely, but he refused to show his discomfort. He was quietly grateful when Madam Pomfrey set a small phial of pain-relief potion on his bedside table.

“My patient needs rest now, Minister.”

“Of course, Madam Pomfrey. Thank you, Lord Malfoy. I believe what you have told us will save some lives, and finish the last of this war that much sooner. I may call upon you in the future with more questions, if you are willing.”

Draco wondered if he’d ever get used to hearing himself addressed by his father’s title. “I am glad to be of help, Minister.”

Shacklebolt stood up. “Harry, I will go and brief Robards and the Senior Aurors with this new information. I’ll call you when we begin to discuss plans, if you like?”

“Yes, please.”

“Excellent.”

Shacklebolt began to move away, but Draco looked at the phial by his bedside and suddenly remembered something. “Wait!”

The Minister walked back to the bed with a raised eyebrow.

“In the Manor - I have a stash of healing potions, and sleeping draughts. A large stash, over a hundred bottles.” Draco could see Pomfrey light up in his peripheral vision. “There’s nothing fancy, but there’s an array of basic pain-relief and blood-renewing potions, as well as a lot of Dreamless Sleep. I brewed them myself. I’m no Sn - no Potions Master, but Potter can attest that I’m a competent brewer. They’re hidden under the floor in my private study on the second floor of the East Wing.”

Shacklebolt smiled. “Thank you,” he said, and offered his hand. Draco shook it, a little taken aback. “I will instruct the Aurors to retrieve them and pass them along to Madam Pomfrey.”

He turned and left the room.

“Mr Malfoy, thank you very much.” Madam Pomfrey was practically beaming at him. “This will let me do more than just the minimum. I’ll be able to take some pressure off St Mungo’s. I must go write and tell the Head Nurse…”

She hurried off towards the back of the room.

“She even forgot to tell you to drink your potion,” said Potter, amused.

Draco felt something quite like smugness. Perhaps he would try surprising people like this again sometime. “Does the Black house have a potions lab, Potter?”

Potter started. “Er, not that I know of. Why?”

So much for retaining the element of surprise. “I want to brew more healing potions for Pomfrey. I imagine it will take a while before the professional apothecaries will be able to catch up with the demand for healing potions from St. Mungo’s, and it would be good to get the Hospital Wing’s stash fully restocked as soon as possible.”

“Oh, right, of course. Well, there are loads of empty rooms, you can just pick one, and I’m sure they’ll let you take the ingredients you need from the school supplies.”

“Excellent. I can have my cauldrons brought over from the Manor.”

Potter smiled at him. Draco stared. It was definitely the first time Potter had looked at him like that - like he could almost be glad to see him.

Potter seemed to remember himself and the smile faded.

“Malfoy, I know I said I wasn’t going to ask questions, but I need to know what the hell you were thinking.” Draco braced, thinking of sixth year, or just last Saturday, trying to drag Potter off to his death. “Where were you going? Why didn’t you stay in Slytherin? You said you would!”

Draco’s eyes widened. Oh, Merlin, he had forgotten! How could he have done that? “I was trying to get to the hospital wing. I needed to see Prudy. She - Winky told me - about Dobby.” He fixed his gaze firmly on the ceiling, but could still see Potter stiffen. “I - I have to tell her. She doesn’t know yet, or didn’t, maybe she does now. I wanted her to hear it from me. She is - she was - she _is _Dobby’s sister.” The pain in his chest was back, a totally different kind from the ache in his lung. He allowed himself to clench his hands together so he could keep his face impassive.

Potter didn’t move. He seemed to have stopped breathing.

After several long moments, Potter unclenched slightly, and Draco dared to glance at his face. Potter’s jaw was tight and his eyes hard and gleaming.

“Potter - would you find her? I can’t move from this bed. I’m sorry to ask you, I know I have no right, but if you could bring her here, then I’ll - I’ll tell her…”

Potter blinked at him.

“Potter. Please. Say something. I…” _Gods_. “I’m scared you blame me for Dobby’s death.”

Potter sucked in a surprised breath, and finally seemed to see him properly. “You didn’t kill him, Malfoy,” he said roughly.

“No. My psychotic aunt did. In my house. I wouldn’t blame you for blaming me, Potter, at least a little. But, well, I doubt it’ll help, but I am - ” He had to swallow as his voice thickened. “I am exceedingly sorry that he’s dead.”

Potter turned away abruptly. Draco flinched, but relaxed slightly when Potter threw a parting remark back over his shoulder.

“I’ll find her, Malfoy.”

***

Waiting for Potter’s return was exceedingly boring. Draco had never realised how often he wanted to move until he had to lie entirely still. He passed the time by watching the rich afternoon sunlight catch on the dust motes and refract through the Bloody Baron. He thought about trying to engage the ghost in conversation but didn’t want to show his guardian any disrespect.

It seemed that the more still and silent he held his body, the less he could hold his mind in check. His thoughts whirred, and nearly all of them made him feel uneasy. He jumped from wondering what it would be like to live in Grimmauld Place, to whether he wanted to return to Hogwarts next year, to Peeves, to his uncle, no - he’d rather imagine his parents being shut up into their cells in Azkaban than think of _him_. He thought of Potter, and whether he would really keep the Malfoy family secrets, and what his new powers over wood and water could do. For a while he pondered on who else might be on the list of seven for the Path of the Penitent, but a thick swirl of guilt made his chest tight, and he wrenched his mind away before he could give himself a panic attack.

After an hour or two he fell into a light doze. He jolted awake when something icy passed through his hand, and he almost screamed at the translucent figure looming over him.

But it wasn’t Peeves. It was Moaning Myrtle.

“Oh, Draco!” Her wide eyes filled with dramatic tears behind her glasses. She swooped over him to the other side of the bed, clutching at her chest and letting out a sob. “I heard all about it! It’s too dreadful! You nearly _died!_”

She swooped away and back again, seemingly too overwhelmed to stay still. Draco followed her progress with his eyes, wishing he could turn his head. It was now evening, and the sun was low enough to pour directly into the room. Myrtle all but disappeared in the golden swathes of light.

“Hello, Myrtle. Yes, I nearly died.” _And you’re quite disappointed I didn’t, aren’t you?_

The Bloody Baron was still near the ceiling, staring down at Myrtle with obvious disapproval.

Myrtle settled again near the foot of the bed, bobbing upwards slightly as she gave a theatrical sniff. “You haven’t been to see me for _ages_, Draco! I thought we were friends?”

Draco rolled his eyes, but he didn’t actually feel as exasperated as he normally did by Myrtle’s wheedling. In fact, he felt a sense of warmth unfurling at the sight of her. He hadn’t thought there would be a single being in this castle who would voluntarily come to pay him a visit.

“We _are _friends, Myrtle. I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you lately - after the Easter holidays, I… well… it was just safer to spend most of the time down in Slytherin.”

Myrtle sniffed and blew her nose loudly on a large, ghostly handkerchief. Still not appeased, then.

“Myrtle… thank you for coming to see me.” Myrtle stopped crying, and her eyes nearly bugged out behind her glasses as she stared at him. Right, of course - Draco never said thank you to her before. Well, damn it, if he could be earnest with Potter, he could be sincere with a ghost - with his only remaining friend at Hogwarts. “I - I appreciate it, Myrtle. And I know it must be a blow to discover that I somehow survived again.”

Myrtle suddenly cackled, the crying forgotten, and executed a quick loop. “Ha! I’m glad you didn’t die this time, Draco.” She looked down at him with a glint in her eye.

“Why?”

“Because your ghost would have been flat as a pancake!” She cackled again. “Urgh, seriously though, imagine it. All squished and shattered… ew,” she shuddered, “no _thanks_.”

Draco grinned at her. “You are such a bitch, Myrtle.”

She drew herself up in mock haughtiness. “I am not! I am the height of compassion. That Olivia Hornby, _she _was a bitch.”

“Oh, yes, and I’m sure you always showed her _so _much compassion.”

Myrtle cackled with such glee that it reminded Draco of Pansy Parkinson.

“You should have seen her, Draco! Did I tell you about the time when she first saw me as a ghost?Ooo, it was hilarious…”

Myrtle was halfway through a rather bloodthirsty story of taking vengeance on her former childhood nemesis, when _his _former childhood nemesis returned. Potter must have come in quite quietly, because the first Draco knew about it was when he stepped into Draco’s restricted field of vision.

“… and then she took off running to the professor, all snotty and crying, but - you!” Myrtle span around and flew right up to Potter, jabbing an icy finger into his chest. “You should have been expelled! Why are you here? You _murdered _Draco!”

“Uh - hi, Myrtle…”

“Don’t you ‘hi, Myrtle’ _me_! You killed him! Slashed him open, cut him to ribbons before my very eyes!”

Potter’s light-brown skin paled. “No, I - no - I didn’t, I didn’t mean to…” Draco raised his eyebrows at the extent of Potter’s discomfort with the memory. It looked like he was going to be sick.

“He didn’t kill me, Myrtle,” Draco said quietly. “And you know he was the one who saved me this time.” _And the last two times before that_.

“Huh. Still. I thought you were such a _sweet_ boy, Harry Potter, but you’re not, you’re - ” she paused, then said with gossiping relish, “a _murderer_.”

Potter blanched, then pressed his lips together. Draco wondered if Potter was now, technically, a murderer - although the Dark Lord had fallen from his own spell… Did _Potter _think of himself as a killer?

“Leave him alone, Myrtle. He’s not a murderer, despite his best efforts.”

“Hmmm.” Myrtle glared directly into Potter’s face for a few more moments, before finally relenting. “Are you _sure_ I couldn’t haunt him a little bit? Like I did with the Hornby bitch? You know I would do it for you, Draco…”

“No haunting. I can handle Potter on my own. I’ll see you later though, Myrtle, okay?”

Myrtle sniffed. “_Fine._ You’re no fun, Draco.” Then she swooped off, going directly through Potter on her way to the wall.

Potter gasped and wrapped his arms around himself, wracked by a full-body shiver.

“Ugh, that is always so horrible,” Potter said through gritted teeth.

Draco smirked. “Yeah, well, I think she felt pretty justified.”

Potter grimaced, and didn’t meet Draco’s eyes. “She _was_ justified. Malfoy, I - about the, the bathroom, I never even said that I’m - ”

“Don’t even, Potter. You do _not _need to apologise. No!” Potter’s mouth had opened in protest but Draco barrelled on. “I don’t _want_ your apology. After everything you’ve done for me, it’ll just make me feel worse.” Potter glowered. “Look, Potter, she’s just disappointed that I didn’t end up haunting her bathroom with her forever, don’t worry about it.”

“I really should have been expelled though…” Potter finally let it go with a disgruntled sigh. “Whatever. I suppose it can wait. Um, I’ve brought Prudy here with me.”

“Hello, Master Draco, sir! Mr Potter is saying you were injured, sir?”

Prudy’s squeaky voice came from somewhere below Draco’s line of sight, from around Potter’s feet.

“Prudy!” At first, Draco just felt a rush of relief at hearing another friendly voice, but then a wave of dread pinned him to the mattress as he remembered what he now had to do. “Prudy, how about - how about you come up onto the bed? There’s room.”

“Okay, Master Draco!”

A moment later, Prudy clambered up and over the edge of the mattress. She settled herself almost primly on the bed to the left of Draco’s chest, tucking her pillow-case and purple waist-coat down around her crossed knees. Draco scanned her all over.

“How are you feeling, Prudy? Are you completely healed?” Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw Potter take a seat in one of the transfigured chairs from earlier.

“Prudy is feeling fine now, Master Draco, the Matron is healing Prudy very well - but Master Draco is not fine! Master Draco is hurt, Mr Potter is saying the poltergeist is throwing huge rocks at Master Draco!”

Her tiny hands clutched at her skirts and her bulbous eyes filled with tears.

“It’s okay, Prudy - the Matron healed me too. By tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.”

Prudy sniffed and nodded, bringing up a corner of her pillow-case to wipe her eyes. “Prudy is just wishing Prudy is being there to protect Master Draco.”

Draco let his left hand rest on Prudy’s narrow back. He hated to see her upset, and he hadn’t even told her yet.

“Prudy, I - I have to tell you something. It’s about - about Dobby.”

Prudy peered at him from over the clutched pillow-case. She waited for him to continue, but Draco’s throat had closed up on him.

“What about Dobby, sir? Is Master Draco knowing where Dobby is?”

Draco swallowed forcefully. She was sitting so close. He wanted to shut his eyes to avoid her earnest look, but that would be cowardly. Shit, he really didn’t want to do this.

“Prudy, I’m so sorry - your brother - Dobby, he, he’s - ”

“Oh no!” Prudy squeaked. Her tiny fists covered her mouth and her ears quivered. “Oh no, oh no…”

Draco couldn’t stand it. She just looked so sad. He rubbed her back in small circles and met her pleading gaze, unable to speak, and he watched as she read the truth in his eyes. He watched her hope disappear.

“Dobby!” She wailed, and flung herself forward across Draco’s chest, clutching at his hospital gown. He kept rubbing her back helplessly as her entire frame shook with almost-soundless sobs.

Draco looked away and met Potter’s eyes, and Draco was surprised to see his own powerless anguish so perfectly matched. Potter stood up and brought his chair round to the right side of the bed, where he reached forward to rest his hand on Prudy’s shoulder. His fingers brushed Draco’s, but Draco wasn’t going to stop rubbing her back.

After a few, endless minutes, Prudy’s sobs began to subside. Draco brought his right hand up to wipe away a couple of stray tears from his own face and he wasn’t surprised to see Potter do the same. Finally, Prudy stopped crying, but didn’t uncurl from her position as a tight ball of limbs on Draco’s chest.

“Prudy, I’m so sorry.” Potter had to clear his throat to continue speaking. “I - he - it was a few weeks ago. And - it was my fault. He died saving me and my friends from - ” his eyes flickered up to Draco’s face, and Draco held his breath - “from great danger. We would all have died without him.”

Prudy shuddered once, but she gradually uncurled herself until she could peek out at them both. Her eyes were scrunched up and red as if the light hurt her. Draco’s heart clenched, and he could feel tears prickling again as he spoke.

“Oh, Prudy. I’m so, so sorry. I wish - I wish I could have died instead of him - ”

“No! No, Master Draco, sir. Prudy is being so happy you survived. Prudy th-thought we is all - all safe. But it was being a war, sir. We cannot all survive.”

Her ears drooped; her tone of voice was resigned, almost wise. Draco wondered how he could possibly ever have inspired her loyalty. Why had she wanted to come back to him, even when she could have stayed free?

“Prudy, I - I want you to go and stay with your grandmother for a while, okay? Frona needs to know what happened, and she can look after you better than I can right now.”

“Master - Prudy is wanting to stay with you…”

“I know, Prudy, but you need time to grieve. I’m not sending you away, okay? This isn’t a punishment. It’s just for a week.”

Prudy sniffled and nodded, looking absolutely wretched. Draco squeezed her back. “I’ll see you in a week, Prudy. Take good care of yourself.”

“Yes, Master.” She sat up and, with a pop, apparated away.

Potter sat with his head bowed for several moments, before heaving himself upright. He started walking towards the door, moving as if his feet suddenly weighed more than usual. Draco could just let him go, he didn’t _have_ to say anything -

“Potter.”

Potter came back to where Draco could see him, waiting for him to continue. Draco quailed, but now the Path spell had kicked in, and he could almost let it do the talking for him. “What you said. About it being your fault. You know that was bullshit, right? You didn’t get yourself imprisoned on purpose, and it was Dobby’s choice to rescue you. I was - I was the one who stood by and did _nothing_ that day, even when my - when Bellatrix was torturing Granger. So if anyone is to blame out of the two of us, it is definitely not you.”

Potter looked down, scuffing his foot along the floor. Then he gave a tight shrug. “What happened, happened. I just have to - have to accept that.” He looked up and gave Draco a nod. “See you tomorrow, Malfoy.” He turned and left.


	6. 7th May, 1998

Draco was once again grateful for the Dreamless Sleep when he woke up the next day. Without night terrors or visions for a couple of nights, and with Madam Pomfrey carefully making sure he ate enough, he had some energy again. He was not strong, and not whole, since his leg still cramped occasionally and most of the bones in his torso and arm still ached, but he would take this over the way he’d felt for the last two years.

Winky popped in to leave his packed trunk at the foot of his bed. Draco was surprised when she took a second to hop up onto the bed and tell him, in her squeaky voice, that she was sorry he had been hurt and happy that he had survived. McGonagall visited briefly after breakfast to say thank you for his offer of making more healing potions, and add a package of ingredients to his trunk. At midday, he was finally allowed to move, and Madam Pomfrey helped him get changed out of his hospital gown and into his own clothes. He wore a dark blue casual robe, no school uniform for him any more. Potter arrived around mid-afternoon to take him away.

“Can you walk? Madam Pomfrey said it was safe for you to move your spine again…”

“Yeah, my bones are fine. I still have that hole in my leg though. I need to make myself some more crutches, but I don’t want anyone seeing me use the Old Magic.”

“Oh, right.” Potter walked away, and came back shortly with Madam Pomfrey, who was holding a pair of wooden crutches much like the ones Draco had made for himself. She measured them against him and cast a quick Elongation Charm to make them the right size.

Once the crutches fit him, Draco swung himself upright. It felt brilliant to be fully mobile again.

Potter checked his watch. “Let’s go. Bill’s going to be meeting us there in half an hour.” He swirled his wand and levitated Draco’s trunk in front of him. “We just need to get down to the gates and then I’ll apparate us there.”

Draco nodded, and turned to Madam Pomfrey.

“I thank you for my life, Madam Pomfrey. If there is anything that the House of Malfoy can do for you, my door is always open.”

“You are most welcome, Mr Malfoy. And if you are really able to help with the healing potion situation, I will be most appreciative.”

Draco nodded again, in lieu of a proper bow, which he couldn’t quite manage with the crutches. He thought of offering his hand to shake, but she probably didn’t want to touch a Death Eater any more than necessary.

He turned and swung himself towards the door, where Potter was waiting. As Potter went through ahead of him, he saw where they were going. It was the Great Hall - the temporary hospital wing had been set up in the room behind the Staff Table.

He froze.

The door closed, and after a few seconds, Potter reappeared, looking confused. “I thought you were following me? Do I need to hold the door for you?”

“No, the door’s fine. I… I’m scared, Potter, all right? Of going through the Hall, having people see me. I don’t want to be attacked. By them or by Peeves.”

He felt much shakier now that he had admitted it out loud. It was so horribly weak to be ruled by his fear like this. And to have to tell someone on top of that, and for it to be Potter, of all people, who had faced the Dark Lord not five days ago…

He dared a glance at Potter’s face, hoping not to find a question there that would compel him to admit even more. It was almost worse that Potter clearly understood.

“It’ll be fine, Malfoy. There’s only a couple of Aurors out there right now, and they’ve been briefed on the situation. Now’s a good time to make a move, actually.”

Draco took a breath and was surprised by how much less tight his chest felt. “Okay, good. Let’s go, then.”

This time, Potter did wait long enough to hold the door open for him, which saved him having to open it using his shoulder. Potter had been telling the truth. The Aurors - one of them the woman who had stood guard over him down in the dungeon cell - looked over, and frowned, but didn’t say anything. Potter levitated Draco’s trunk again from where he’d left it by the Staff Table, and Draco followed him quickly through the Great Hall, the Entrance Hall, and out onto the grounds.

They didn’t speak all the way down the driveway to the gates. Just before he stepped out of them, Draco turned back and looked at the castle. He sucked in a breath. Hogwarts was visibly wrecked. The Great Hall and Entrance hall had already been repaired, and the grounds cleared of the most obvious debris, so he had actually forgotten that this was what he would see. The walls were blackened, pock-marked with impact craters, gaping open in places. Whole towers were missing. He had wanted to take one last look in case he could never return, but this wasn’t how he wanted to remember Hogwarts.

He turned back hastily, and Potter caught his eye. Draco’s shoulders rose as he braced for the confession he would have to give. But Potter carefully didn’t ask, didn’t even look curious, and Draco relaxed as he felt no urge to start talking.

“We can go from here,” Potter said, stepping up to him. “Er - you can just hold my arm, I guess?”

Draco tucked the right crutch under his other arm and grabbed Potter’s left arm just above the elbow. Draco wondered if Potter felt as awkward about touching as he did. Probably, because Potter wasted no time before turning and dragging Draco into the darkness.

***

As soon as they landed, Draco yanked his hand away from Potter’s arm. He hadn’t taken enough time to make sure he had his balance. Instinctively, he put his left foot down as he lost his centre of gravity. His calf immediately flared in agony.

“Ow, _shit_.” His leg crumpled beneath him, and he landed in an awkward heap on his left side. One of the damn crutches whacked him on the shin on the way down.

He flailed about, trying to get the crutches underneath him and get himself upright as fast as possible, but his leg was still cramping and the crutches were too long to get leverage on the ground.

“Hey, Malfoy, Jesus - take it easy…”

Draco stopped struggling. He was only making himself look more pathetic. He settled for sitting up and using one hand to try and persuade his rigid calf muscle to relax. He glared at the wet grass between his knees, steadfastly ignoring Potter standing over him, and blinking several times to clear his eyes of the tears that the pain had forced to the surface.

Once the pain had faded back to the normal background ache he finally looked up. Potter looked slightly concerned, and the spell immediately demanded he explain. “Leg, Potter. It has a hole in it. Remember? Not enough muscle left, so it cramps up, leading to embarrassing lapses in my ability to remain upright.”

“Right. I remember. Do you want a hand?” Potter held out his hand towards him.

“Not really, Potter, I wish I didn’t need your help.” Draco sighed and took it anyway. Potter braced and easily took his weight, which was a good thing as Draco had to rely on him rather a lot to get up using only one leg and one crutch.

Draco finally got a chance to look around. They were on a scrappy, litter-strewn square of grass, surrounded on all sides by a muggle road lined with more cars than Draco had ever really seen gathered in one place before, and a ring of dingy-looking tall town-houses beyond that. Potter had apparated them into the shade of an anaemic beech tree. Draco could spot at least two broken windows just in the houses nearest to them. He wrinkled his nose.

“I’m not familiar with the way muggles live, Potter, but this doesn’t seem like a very savoury area. Why would the Blacks choose this as the location for their ancestral home?”

Potter shrugged. “Damned if I know. It was probably really posh about two hundred years ago.”

“Are you not worried about apparating right in front of about three hundred muggle windows?”

Potter rolled his eyes, which was supposed to be _Draco’s _move. “Do you know what, Malfoy, that hadn’t even occurred to me. Or maybe I came by earlier and set up a Notice-Me-Not Charm under this tree.”

“No need to get huffy, Potter.”

“Oh that’s funny, cauldron, I didn’t know you knew my good friend kettle?”

“Ha ha. I suppose you think you’re very amusing. Actually, and please do bear in mind I’m being forced to tell you this and I don’t want to and I don’t want you to make anything of it, right now I am both jealous of your ability to use sarcasm and rather glad you’re being a bit of a prat, because it’s familiar and I find it comforting, and I’m getting quite uneasy thinking about how many muggles there are within a mile radius of me. Also, I feel disgusting having to tell you all this.”

Potter goggled at him. To his credit, it was only for one second, before he blinked, stuffed his hands in his pockets, sat down on Draco’s trunk, and clearly put effort into biting back several replies.

“Your truth-bombs are really… well. Really something, Malfoy.”

Draco still felt tense with humiliation, and he almost wished Potter would be nastier about this so that he could get properly angry with him. The debts he owed Potter were now verging on uncountable, and he hated it.

Just then, a loud _crack _right behind him nearly made Draco fall over again. He forced himself to remember his leg and managed to spin round relatively deftly, to see a tall male Weasley standing under the tree, arms crossed.

A Weasley with a badly-scarred face. Oh, Merlin.

“You’re the Weasley who - ”

He snapped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Potter’s eyes narrowed.

“The Weasley who _what_, Malfoy?”

It was the first time Potter had deliberately used his advantage over him, and Draco didn’t know why he was surprised: he deserved the suspicious tone. He kept his chin up and forced himself not to mumble.

“He’s the one who Greyback injured, when I - when I - when I let the other Death Eaters into the castle. I… don’t know why I’m not kneeling on the ground right now begging for forgiveness.”

Potter’s eyes widened in understanding. William Weasley, however, raised an eyebrow, looking amused. “Oh, please, don’t let me stop you, Malfoy. I’ll treasure the memory. It’ll be a story to tell the grandkids, a Malfoy actually apologising.”

Draco pressed his lips together. His whole torso flared with shame and anger. It was hard to look at this man’s maimed face, harder still not to snap back as a desperate deflection, but he knew it was the very, very least he could do. It didn’t feel possible to do anything more, though.

Potter stood up from the trunk, and his movement broke the tension a little. “Er, hi, Bill. Thanks for coming. Did Kingsley explain Malfoy would be here? I should have warned you, I didn’t think…”

“He did mention it, yeah. Gods only know why you’re taking him in, Harry. Mum and dad are going to flip their lids. I remember picking up the pieces after your recent experience of the Malfoys’ _hospitality_ and I really, really don’t get why you think you need to return the favour.”

Draco had to plant his crutches more firmly against the grass to prevent himself swaying where he stood. He felt ill.

Potter looked stricken. He clearly hadn’t thought through the likely reactions from his pseudo-family when offering Draco help. “Um… sorry?”

Weasley’s face softened around his scars as he broke away from glaring at Draco to look at Potter. “Harry. It’s your house. You can invite whoever you like to stay in it. I’m just surprised - well, you’re a bigger man than me, that’s all.”

Potter nodded, clearly still uncomfortable. “I’ll, er - I just need to show Malfoy the tent and then we can get started.”

Bill nodded, and swept a stray strand of his long ginger hair back with a sigh.

Potter shaking his arm got Draco to lurch into motion. He followed Potter towards the centre of the scrubby square. In between one crutch-swing and the next, a small tent appeared.

Draco looked sideways at Potter, but he ignored Draco’s unspoken question. What a luxury. Potter was moving stiffly, not looking at him; Bill’s words had definitely had an impact. Draco wanted to say that he could just go find a hotel, but he couldn’t get the words unstuck from his throat. Potter swung round to face him at the entrance to the tent, his arms crossed tightly.

“You’ll be staying here until the new Fidelius charm is done. It’s safer for now. I’ve done all the spells and wards we used while we were on the run. It got a bit trashed by the Snatchers and I only just went to fetch it this morning, so it’s a mess. You can start cleaning it up while Bill and I check the house over.” Without even waiting for an acknowledgement, Potter strode back towards the tree. Draco watched as a slight shimmer indicated the moment Potter had stepped through the wards.

He turned back to the tent. The only times he had been camping were as a seven-year-old sleeping in his enchanted treehouse in the orchard at the Manor, and at the Quidditch World Cup every four years, when their tent more closely resembled a portable palace.

He gingerly pulled back the tent flap and ducked his head as he hopped through.

At least it was wizarding space. He wouldn’t have put it past Potter to have gone on the run from a genocidal dictatorship with only a muggle tent for shelter. It was a sub-par Undetectable Extension Charm, as the interior was still extraordinarily pokey - all three rooms added up to about half the size of his bedroom at the Manor. The whole place smelt strongly of cats, and he had never seen decor quite like it. He supposed this kind of fusty, mismatched tweeness would perhaps pass for style if one was poor enough, or a muggle, or perhaps both and also elderly.

The place had been thoroughly ransacked. The very idea of cleaning it up without a wand was a joke. The floor of the tiny kitchenette was ankle-deep in smashed crockery and several of the cabinet doors had been torn off. Two of the four bunk-beds in the bedroom were lying on their side on the floor, blocking access to the other end of the room, and one of the thin mattresses had been gutted with swipes of a knife. Back in the main room, a wireless lay smashed on its side on the tiny dining table. The contents of pretty much every drawer and shelf in the whole place had been dumped on the ground and stamped on.

How strange it was, to be in the Golden Trio’s own tent. For all those months, so many people had been wondering where they were, and they’d been _here_. And now he was too. Even with the carnage, Draco could see obvious traces of their lives on the run. There were books all over the place - Granger, of course; a Chudley Cannons mug still intact on the kitchen floor; one of the surviving cabinet doors had a piece of parchment stuck to it, displaying a neat chart. Draco carefully shuffled over to read it. _Tent Chores Rota_, it said at the top. There was a key declaring the colour code: red for Potter, orange for Weasley and blue for Granger. The list of chores started in Granger’s writing with things like _cooking_, _foraging_, _washing up_, and _standing watch, _but continued in other handwriting with items like _brainstorm how to kill Old Sneeze-Slits _and _have stupidly close call_. They had all signed a statement at the bottom which read: _The forfeit for failing to uphold your tasks on this rota will be to taste Ron’s Mystery Mushroom (not a euphemism)_. Draco snorted. That rota would now be worth a fortune - anything here would.

For a moment Draco could vividly imagine the terror of the Snatchers crashing in, of being dragged out by the hair, tied up and brought to the Manor to be tortured and killed. Someone, surely Granger, had done that stinging hex on Potter’s face - how could she have thought of that, in the same moment as their sanctuary was invaded? Merlin. There was being intellectually quick-witted, and then there was having nerves of steel.

The tent flap opened behind him. Draco started and pulled off yet another fast turn on his crutches.

“Easy, Malfoy, it’s just us.”

Potter came in, followed by Weasley. Weasley looked around with his eyebrows raised. “They gave this place a right going-over, didn’t they? Hey, this is old Perkins’ tent - I gave you another, Harry, why are you still using this one?”

Potter looked awkward. “Oh, well - I, er, couldn’t find it this morning. I think it’s still in Hermione’s bag.”

“And you couldn’t have just asked her?”

“Um, you know, she’s so busy with - with the arrangements… I’ll get it back for you, I promise.”

“Merlin, Harry, I don’t care about that. I’m just not sure why you’d prefer wandering around some godforsaken forest all morning looking for this old thing, all for the benefit of a pasty Death Eater, mind you, instead of popping over to the Burrow and asking your friends for help.”

Potter rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand, looking miserable. “Sorry, Bill, I - I want to, but - I, I can’t right now. I just can’t.”

Weasley frowned, sighed. “Harry - hey, it’s all right. I get it. But look, you are going to come to Fr- to the funeral tomorrow, yeah?”

Potter stared at him. “Of course! I would never…”

Weasley gave him a relieved nod. “Good. Okay. Sorry, I know you wouldn’t, but I was starting to get a bit worried. Mum and dad - they need all of us, all their remaining children with them for that, you know?”

Potter huffed a breath and bit his lip. His eyes darted from the ground, to the tent wall, to Bill’s face. “Er - yeah. Yeah.” His voice sounded a bit husky.

Draco froze as Weasley turned to look at him. He had been attempting to merge with the ruined kitchen cabinet behind him in the hope that he’d be forgotten entirely.

“Well, Malfoy, looks like, astonished as I am, having a Death Eater around is going to be of some use today. It’s your time to shine!”

Draco just looked at him, then over to Potter.

Potter cleared his throat. “Looks like Tom added his own little something to the security. Only someone with the Dark Mark can get through the doorway.”

Before he could stop himself, Draco covered his left forearm with his right palm. The bandage was still wrapped securely around the Mark under his shirt sleeve.

“So… you coming?”

Weasley ducked out of the tent, and Potter turned back on his way out to hold the flap back for Draco.

“Of course I am, Potter. I don’t want to turn down the chance to reciprocate on doing you a favour.”

They walked together to the edge of the road on one side of the square.

“Oh - Malfoy - my house is at twelve, Grimmauld Place, all right?”

“Right…?” Then Draco saw the house appearing between two others and he understood.

They crossed the road, Draco bringing up the rear. Weasley opened the gate into the tiny paved area that passed as a front garden. The stone steps up to the front door were worn with age and a trifle uneven, and Draco took care not to stumble in any way under Weasley’s examination.

The paint was flaking from the door in large curls, but the serpent door-knocker still managed to look imposing. There was no handle to turn. This house was only intended for wizards, after all.

“Potter - I need my wand to open this.”

“Ah. Um…”

“Nice try, Malfoy. You won’t, as it happens. You just need to do your little Death Eater salute and then you can walk through the door easy as platform nine and three-quarters.”

“I see.” Like the Manor gate. He straightened his back as much as he could while using the crutches to balance on the top step. “Then if you each put a hand on one of my shoulders, I should be able to take you in with me.”

Weasley nodded impatiently. “That’s the idea, Malfoy. Then I’ll disable the spell from the inside.”

He felt Weasley’s long hand come reluctantly to rest on his left shoulder, Potter’s hand on his right. Draco hesitated for a second, looking side-long at Potter. He didn’t want Potter seeing this stupid salute, but he didn’t want to have to explain why either, so he lifted his left arm to get it over with as quickly as possible.

The wood immediately became insubstantial, like swirling smoke somehow taking the shape and colour of a door. Draco awkwardly hopped forward, keeping his left arm raised, followed closely by the Weasley and Potter nearly tripping on his heels.

Draco had just registered the shape of a dim hallway as some gas-lights flickered into life, when an angry and vaguely familiar voice growled, “Severus Snape?”

Draco jumped, but didn’t have time to react further before a rush of cold air moved over him, and he felt his tongue roll back against the roof of his mouth. A flutter of panic rose in his chest, but the next moment, his tongue was released.

His eyes were immediately drawn to something shifting in the darkness at the far end of the corridor - the dust coiling upwards, forming a shape, a man’s shape -

Dumbledore. An Inferius, reaching with a rotting hand, rushing towards him.

_No! _Draco choked on a cry and stumbled back, slamming himself into the bodies behind him. He had to get out, get away, but Dumbledore was far too powerful, he would kill Draco, he was nearly upon him -

“We didn’t kill you, Professor,” Potter said calmly, and Dumbledore exploded into dust.

Draco flinched back even further, and Weasley shoved him off in disgust. Draco groped for the wall, hardly seeing it through the swirling grey dust, and sank down against it, until he was sat in a ball, pressing his side hard against the ancient wallpaper. His breaths were quick, shallow gasps that rasped in his throat. And the spell wanted him to start talking.

“Yes, I did, Potter. _Yes I did_. I killed him. I - I - he’s dead, because I - ”

His breath was coming faster and faster. He wanted to retch, he felt dizzy, he was shaking. He clung to his knees. His chest was getting tighter and tighter, the pain building. He knew he was doomed and he could only wish that he could muster enough backbone to die with some fucking dignity in front of Potter. But no. He was too damn _weak_.

“Huh. That’s quite a reaction.” Weasley’s voice was distant. “I could almost believe he might feel bad about it, you know?”

A part of Draco almost wanted to laugh, but he knew he would sound hysterical. He pressed his lips together and hid his face in the relative safety of his arms. No-one had ever seen him have an attack before. He had always managed to hold it together until he reached privacy. He willed himself to get a grip, but it was far too late. He just couldn’t do it. The pressure in his chest was crushing and a pins-and-needles numbness was spreading across his scalp and down his arms.

Dimly, Draco noted that Potter was kneeling next to him.

“Malfoy, can you hear me?”

Draco managed a jerky nod.

“Bill, I reckon I should take him back to the tent. Are you all right by yourself - ?”

“Yeah, of course, Harry. Give me twenty minutes and I’ll have this ward down and you’ll be able to get back in.”

“Right. I’ll see you soon.”

Hands were tugging gently at Draco’s arms. He cringed away; at this moment he couldn’t even handle breathing, and now Potter wanted him to cope with more sensations? With interaction? With _moving?_ Couldn’t Potter see how wrecked he was? He couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t be able to do it, the tent was so far away…

“Hey. Hey. Malfoy. It’s all right.”

Draco huffed a slightly louder gasp, the shadow of a laugh.

“Come on. It was just an illusion. There’s nothing to be scared of.”

Great. Yeah. He already knew he was pathetic, thanks.

“Okay, that’s it. If you don’t get up in the next ten seconds then I’m going to hex you.”

Draco whipped his head up. Potter was drawing his wand, and he looked serious. He stood up and extended his empty hand towards Draco, eyebrows raised in challenge.

Draco grabbed it and didn’t let himself think as Potter pulled him up onto his one working foot. He was surprised to find that he actually could stand up.

“Good. Now move.” Potter jerked his head towards the door.

Draco adjusted his sweaty grip on the cross-bar of the crutches and did as he was bid. He was still hyperventilating, still over-sensitive to everything, but he fixed his eye’s on Potter’s back and somehow followed him back out of the door, down the steep steps, across the road, over the grass and back through the tent flap.

Potter aimed his wand at a heap of stuffing and kindling and said, “_Reparo_.” The wreckage flew back into an armchair.

“Sit.”

Draco collapsed into the chair, dropped the crutches, and wrapped his arms across his chest. He thought if he just kept staring at the opposite wall, he could ignore how fucked up he was, and this tent was, and the world was.

Potter looked at him for a moment. “Right. I’m making you a cup of tea.” He turned around to the ruined kitchenette and sighed. “This may take a little longer than normal.”

Draco kept staring, and blinking, and breathing, and half-listened as Potter started working his way around all three rooms of the tent, methodically casting _Reparos_.

He already felt a hell of a lot calmer. There was something soothing about slowly seeing the tent get put back together. Potter started with the crockery, levitating things back into the cabinets as they were fixed and then reattaching the cabinet doors. When he had finished putting the kitchenette to rights, he filled a kettle with an _Aguamenti_ and set it to boiling, and then started on the rest of the room and then the bedroom. As soon as the bunk-beds were standing upright again the tent felt so much larger. Draco felt his breathing become a little easier.

A few minutes later, Potter was standing in front of him, holding out the cup of tea. Draco cautiously unwrapped his arms from his chest and didn’t feel at immediate risk of falling apart. He took the tea - it was in the Chudley Cannons mug - and let the warmth seep into his hands and comfort him.

Potter drew up another chair and sat opposite him, cradling his own tea. For a while, they sat in silence, letting it cool. Potter took a sip and then looked over at Draco.

“I’m not going to ask how you feel, okay? I don’t want you to explain. I know you feel like crap.”

Draco snorted. “Thanks.”

“Good. So. I’ve got some stuff to say, Malfoy, and I don’t really want you to interrupt.”

Draco eyed Potter, too exhausted from the previous panic to feel appropriately alarmed.

“You didn’t kill Dumbledore. Technically, Snape did, but it was at Dumbledore’s request. Merlin, that night _I _had already poisoned him, at his request! He was already dying a year before that, from that curse that burnt his hand up. Look, Dumbledore arranged his own death, okay? He had it all planned out. Even if it had been you - if you’d cast the _Avada_ \- I don’t know if it would have counted as full murder. And anyway, I know you wouldn’t have done it. I saw you lower your wand.”

“You _saw_ me?”

“I was there. I was under my invisibility cloak. We had just landed, and when we heard you coming up the stairs Dumbledore immobilised me. That’s how you could disarm him, there was only a second and he didn’t have time to deal with both me and you.”

Draco gaped at him.

Potter ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and kept going.

“Dumbledore, he was - well - I cared about him. Obviously. I still do. And I know he cared about me too, or whatever. But, turns out, that didn’t stop him from using me the entire time. He never told me everything. He let me know just enough, and only at the last minute, to manipulate me into doing what needed doing. And I think I sort of get it. I don’t completely blame him. I can’t even say that it would have been nice to know that I was a - that I had to die, because even knowing for fifteen minutes was too long.”

Wait. Potter had needed to die? _Why?_ He had genuinely gone into the forest to let himself be killed? How the hell had he survived that?

“Anyway. I think he cared about you too, but, well, if I was you, I would be livid. He used you, Malfoy. He knew damn well what you were up to that year, Snape must have told him straight away. He could’ve offered you and your mother a way out right back in the summer, the Order could’ve hidden you, but it was all too perfect an opportunity for him to stage his own death in a way that let Snape stay at Hogwarts. So he let you suffer, and stumble along, and nearly kill Katie and Ron. And he let me stumble around after you until I nearly killed _you_, and he let me put the DA at risk during your raid. I’m sure he did care about you, he probably agonised over it and wished he could help you, but you were just too valuable a tool to spare.”

Draco felt cold. He took a sip of tea, and it brought some feeling back to his lips.

“Gods, Potter. That’s a lot.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I… feel like I’ve just been hit in the head. I don’t know what to think.”

Potter laughed, a trace of bitterness in his tone. “I don’t really either. And I’ve been thinking about it for most of this year.”

“I guess you had to be doing something in here apart from following the tent chores rota.”

Potter laughed again, this time without bitterness.

Draco felt an answering smile wanting to tug at his lips. “Thanks, Potter. For telling me all this. I do feel better.”

Potter nodded. “Good.”

They drank the rest of their tea in silence. Draco didn’t feel cold any more, but he was reeling. He had recognised early in sixth year, of course, that his mother had been right: the Dark Lord had meant for him to die in attempting his task, as a punishment against his father. He knew how much of a fool he’d been for ever thinking it was anything else. He’d never considered that Dumbledore had been using him as well.

“I also feel worse though. Gods. I am so stupid. This keeps getting more humiliating.”

“It is certainly a bit of a kick in the teeth.”

Draco stared at him. “How can you be so calm about this? It sounds like he was fucking _grooming _you into, what, committing suicide?”

“I know. I know. But, well, he did say sorry.” Potter’s lip quirked up in a half-smile.

“Oh, well, that’s all right then - sarcasm, of course it isn’t - wait, he said _sorry? _He was dead!”

Potter shrugged, faux-nonchalant. “Oh, you know, saw him in the afterlife. Had a bit of a chat before I came back, straightened it all out.” His eyes flicked over to Draco, and he grinned at his gormless expression.

“Potter. You. You actually. Died?”

The grin left Potter’s face. “Yeah. I did.”

“Fucking hell.”

“About the size of it, yeah.”

“… _How? _How are you alive?”

Potter sighed. “Do you mind if we don’t go into all that right now? I don’t really like thinking about it.”

“Oh, right, of course not. Sorry.” This whole conversation was bordering on ludicrous. “Potter, why are you being so - why did you tell me all that?”

Potter ran his hand through his hair. “Well, you know, Malfoy, you’ve always been a nasty git, but that doesn’t mean you deserved what Tom did to you. And Dumbledore. You were in an impossible position, and I don’t know if I’d have done any better in your place.”

“Oh.” For a moment, his throat felt choked up and his eyes burned. Then the spell kicked in and his annoyance managed to chase away the threat of tears. “And now I have to tell you that I’m _grateful_ to you. For having a shred of empathy. I hate this fucking spell!”

Potter actually giggled. “I gotta say, it’s weird, but I’m beginning to like it.” He rolled his eyes at Draco’s expression. “Oh, come on. You’ve got to admit it’s sort of funny.”

“Not to me, it’s not, Potter. I feel as though I’m naked.”

At that, Potter tipped his head back and lost himself in proper laughter. The sound was too infectious to withstand. Draco felt an unwilling grin creep onto his face.

“Oh, man.” Potter wiped at his eyes. “I needed that. I haven’t laughed like that in - I can’t remember when I last laughed like that.”

“Well, Potter, I’m glad my predicament amuses you. You deserve a bit of a break, for Gods’ sake.”

“Hey, you actually mean it. Well. Thanks, Malfoy.”

“This whole situation is exceedingly strange, Potter. I never thought we’d see the day when you thanked me.”

“Seriously. But I didn’t expect to be alive right now - even before I knew I had to die, I mean - so I suppose we might have to broaden our view a bit on what’s possible.”

Potter stood up and collected their empty mugs, casting a lazy cleaning charm over them and putting them back in the cabinet. “Anyway. I should be getting back to help Bill. I’ll come back later and fix this place up a bit more, I know it’s a dump. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a hotel?”

“I would rather stay here. I - ” Damn. “I don’t think I’d feel safe at a hotel. It wouldn’t exactly have the best security against vengeful Death Eaters when they learn that I’ve sold them out. Anyway, a wizarding hotel would probably refuse to have me, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable at a muggle one. Also…” Double damn. Deep breath. “I would get - lonely. You’re pretty much the only person who’s willing to talk to me at the moment.”

Potter nodded, and squirmed a little in his chair. Draco supposed it should be better that Potter felt uncomfortable too, but instead it just seemed to double the amount of awkwardness. Draco was certain his face was pink.

“Go on, get back to the Weasley. I’ll see you later.”

Potter gave him a relieved smile as he jumped out of his seat. “Okay. I’ll be back to tidy up - like I said - er, yeah.” He was already backing out of the tent as he spoke, and stumbled as he turned away.

***

Draco spent the rest of the day pottering (ha! Pottering) around the tent. He was at a bit at a loss, but on the other hand, it felt nice to have some space and time to himself with nothing to do. After his attack earlier, he didn’t feel capable of achieving much. He spent a while alphabetising the books that Potter had returned haphazardly to the shelf. He was slightly bemused by the range of topics Granger had seen fit to bring with her - everything from muggle survival guides, a complete set of crumbling potions references, Skeeter’s biography of Dumbledore, and, for some reason, a very old copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard._

Draco eyed the spine of _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ warily. He had never read it, but he hadn’t been able to avoid the other Slytherin students quoting the most salacious parts of it all year. Gingerly, he took the book off the shelf and looked down at the cover. At least the eyes twinkling up at him weren’t empty and sunken like the dust-Dumbledore’s had been. He took a shaky breath.

“You fucker, Dumbledore.” His words lacked bite, though. The only reason he could tell how much guilt he’d been repressing was the strange, airy gap it had left in his mid-section.

Although apparently there was still plenty of guilt left to go round. Unbidden, an image of William Weasley’s scarred face came to mind. If maiming someone for life wasn’t bad enough to merit a spot on his top-seven list of people he’d wronged, what the hell was? What had he done that was _worse?_

The thought almost made him whimper. He really didn’t want to start thinking about it. He had spent most of every day, when not actively busy trying to survive, deliberately trying not to think about it. But he had to, didn’t he? He had to face it so he could move forwards on the Path.

All right. He’d - he’d make a list. A list would sort things out. It would be awful seeing it all written down, but at least like that he could impose some order. Maybe it would feel less overwhelming than the images that were currently swirling round his head.

He opened his trunk and brought out his familiar peacock quill, green ink and parchment. It felt good to see them again; they were a welcome piece of normality, and almost as comforting as the tea had been.

He finally got himself settled at the tiny dining table. The whole process had taken him much longer than it should - even bending over his truck had been difficult on one leg, with the crutches balanced against its side and then sliding to the floor with a clatter. He was breathing fast from the effort and frustration, and he had to try quite hard not to let his breathing get even faster. _This is my life now._

He focused on the blank parchment and the feel of the feather in his hands. He found himself stroking it gently, over and over, and let his mind calm down.

Which was a good thing, because he needed to stay objective for this. Perhaps if he treated it as if it was a piece of homework… He smirked slightly at the thought. Well, why not?

He sat up straighter and took pleasure in dipping his quill in the ink, tapping it deftly on the side of the glass to clear the excess. In the top right corner he wrote the date - it took him a moment to figure it out - and in the top left, his name, so the professor would know whose work it was. Then, neatly, in the top centre, he wrote the title: _The Many Crimes of Draco Malfoy: Being a Most Complete and Thorough Inventory_.

He finished the ‘Y’ with a tasteful flourish and sat back, considering what format was most logical. He decided on a table, and wrote two column headings: _Name,_ and _Wrongs suffered_.

He paused and blew out a slow breath. Okay. No stopping to think. Evaluate later. Just write.

He topped up the ink in his quill and began.

***

It was well into the evening when Potter came back. Draco had made himself as comfortable as he could manage in the bottom bed of one of the bunks, sitting in a nest of bedding and leaning back against the corner pillar. He was reading the _SAS Survival Handbook_.

“Hello, Potter. How’s the house?”

“Oh, there you are.” Potter set down a bag he’d been carrying on the dining table - the bag was made of that weird Muggle stuff, was it called plistac? - and dragged an ugly armchair to the centre of the tent to sit near the bed. He groaned in obvious pleasure at getting off his feet. “House is fine, thanks. Took all afternoon, but Bill checked every room over thoroughly and he’s satisfied he’s disabled all the traps. It’s still absolutely full of dark objects, of course, but it always was. I think the Death Eaters did me a favour by looting some of it, but actually there’s a lot less damage than I expected. We figured maybe your aunt had a thing about preserving her family’s heirlooms?”

Draco coughed. “I’d say that would be a severe understatement.”

“I only wish they hadn’t torn the posters in Sirius’s room…” Potter sighed, and ran his hands through his messy hair. “Anyway. You’ll be glad to know Bill got rid of Old Dusty too.”

“Old - really, Potter? That’s what you called him?”

Potter shrugged. “That’s what Ron named him, and it sort of stuck.”

Draco sniffed. “What’s that smell?”

Potter looked over at the plistac bag. “Ah - I figured you must be hungry?”

“I’ve got used to Pomfrey’s strict meal schedule, so yes, Potter, I’m hungry.”

“And - I don’t know why I’m even bothering asking you this - have you ever had Indian food?”

“No. In fact, I am now officially embarrassed, Potter, because I have to tell you that I had never, until this very moment, even thought about what people in India might eat.”

Potter laughed. “Why am I not surprised? Look, I’m not much better, to be honest - I have a tiny bit of an idea, but I’ve never eaten Indian food either and I _am _part-Indian on my dad’s side.”

Draco had a moment’s blurred insight into how much Potter’s parents could have added to his life, and how much was missing. But Potter looked more excited than wistful. He was busy levitating the table to the centre of the tent and bringing out a couple of plates and cheap cutlery.

“I meant to go to a corner shop to get some groceries but then I saw this Indian takeaway place on my way there, and I honestly couldn’t be bothered with cooking anyway…”

Potter was now bringing out little flat boxes from the bag with a rustle. Draco struggled out from his nest and hopped over to a seat, cracking the lid off one of the boxes curiously.

“Oh, well, I’ve had _rice_ before…”

“How about curry?” Potter slid another box over towards him, which was full of some kind of pungent stew of an unnaturally orange variety.

“You know I haven’t. Potter, are you sure this is edible? How have the muggles made it that colour?”

“Yep. This is only the British takeaway version of Indian food, though; I expect it’s a bit different in India itself. One thing I do know is that it’s supposed to be really spicy…”

Potter had taken the box back and was tipping it over his plate so as to better scrape a portion of the sloppy orange foodstuff over his rice, splashing a bit on the table. Draco goggled for a moment at such a blatant lack of table manners, and then, feeling rather daring, emulated him.

Once they both had their plates loaded with a mix of rice and curry, Potter looked up and their eyes caught across the table. Draco realised suddenly that they were about to _share a meal_. Potter looked almost nervous.

Draco smirked. “Scared, Potter?”

Potter rolled his eyes. “You wish, Malfoy. On three?”

“On three.” He scooped up a large forkful.

“One… two… three!”

Draco took his mouthful at the same time as Potter. The flavour was unfamiliar but delicious. He swallowed.

The next moment heat kicked the back of his throat, his tongue was bathed in flames, and he was spluttering for breath.

Potter was coughing across the table. He jumped up urgently and grabbed a glass, gasping “_Aguamenti!_” and gulping it down. Before Draco could find his voice, Potter grabbed another glass, filled it, and thrust it towards him.

“Thank Merlin,” Draco said, draining it. The water helped, but not enough - the heat still prickled his tongue.

“Wow,” said Potter hoarsely. “They weren’t kidding…”

Draco raised his eyebrows in a question. His eyes were watering.

“I, er, might have asked them for the spiciest curry they had.”

“What? Gods, Potter, you are such a - Gryffindor!”

Potter laughed, refilling his glass for the third time. “I know. I know. I just couldn’t help myself, I was curious…”

Draco snorted. “Well, it’s tasty, but I don’t know how people in India do it. I swear, that curry was trying to kill me.”

“Luckily, I _did _get us some other stuff…”

The rest of the food turned out to be just as unfamiliar and delicious, but far more sensibly spiced. There were triangular packages of pea and potato called samosas, a large and rather shapeless type of doughy flat-bread, called naan, and another curry called a chicken tikka masala. Draco regarded this one with utmost suspicion, but after watching Potter eat a few mouthfuls with evident enjoyment and without reaching for his water, he had a taste and found it just on the right side of bearable.

The conversation was not plentiful, but it wasn’t stilted either, and it centred mainly on the food. When Draco had finished scraping the little box for the last taste of the curry (without even transferring it to his plate first - mother would have been shocked), he sat back on his chair with a replete sigh.

“That, Potter, was a bloody good meal.”

“It really was, wasn’t it? Why did we never have that kind of food at Hogwarts?”

“Honestly, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I think wizards might be a bit set in their ways.”

Potter’s eyes widened, aghast. “No? Surely not?”

“Shut it, Potter. I know I’m a pureblood, but even I can have too much tradition.”

“Isn’t that, like, blasphemy? I thought you literally had your ancestors living inside of you.”

Draco’s nose wrinkled. “Ugh. Potter. Don’t say it like that.”

Potter laughed. “Why not?”

“It sounds dirty! And it’s not like that! I can’t hear them in my head or anything, they don’t _interfere_…”

“Oh, well, thank fuck for that. One Malfoy at a time seems like plenty to me.” Potter looked over quickly, as if he expected Draco to be offended, but Draco only snorted.

“Yes. I am all the Malfoy you could handle, Potter.”

“Yeah, right! You think I couldn’t take your father?”

Draco’s smile faded. “I thought you already had. I seem to remember him coming off worse in that fight you had at the Ministry.”

Potter grimaced. “Right.”

They sat in silence for a moment - the first awkward silence since the meal began.

“Malfoy - do you know what your mother did?”

“What do you mean?” Then Draco remembered. “She said you owed her a life-debt, but… I can’t imagine how she would have…”

“It was in the forest. After I - after Tom hit me with the Killing Curse. He made her come over to check on me. She could feel my pulse, but she bent over me and whispered - well - she asked if you were alive, and in the castle.”

Draco sucked in a breath.

“When I whispered yes, she told everyone I was dead. And so that was when they all paraded back again. She knew it was the only way she’d be able to get back to the castle to get to you.”

Draco sat back, stunned. Warmth and shock were mingling in his chest, spreading upwards. He covered his face with his hands.

“Malfoy, are you all right? Oh shit, sorry, I know I shouldn’t ask - ”

He lowered his hands. “I’m - I’m _happy_, Potter. She took such a stupid, such an _insane _risk, for _me_. I can’t even imagine her doing that. In front of _him_, in front of my aunt, all of them… Fuck, she could have been caught out so easily. One stray twitch from you… I - look, I know my parents love me, but they’re not exactly demonstrative about it, and lately they’ve not done the best job of keeping me safe. Knowing she did this - well, it feels amazing, frankly. My father - he admitted he put us in harm’s way, he even _apologised_, which is unheard of, Potter - but my mother. I knew already, but now I know for certain: she will _never_ fail me.”

He knew his voice sounded rough with emotion, but he felt too warm to mind. He looked over at Potter and didn’t even try to stop himself from beaming. “Thanks for telling me, Potter. It means a lot. Obviously.”

“You’re welcome,” Potter mumbled. His eyes looked bright, greener than usual. “Malfoy, I just realised something - both the first time and the last time I faced Tom, I survived because of, well, because of a mother’s love. Mine, when I was a baby, and yours, last week.”

Draco just looked at him, and knew Potter was thinking something along the same lines: that this connection felt strangely profound.

“Listen, Malfoy, what do I do about this life-debt I owe your mother?” He smirked slightly. “I don’t know the proper traditions, you know.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to do anything until she asks. I expect she’ll want your help when it comes time for her trial.” He wondered whether Potter would ever actually ask _him _to fulfil his life-debts. A few days ago it had worried him to be so indebted to Potter, but now he wouldn’t have been surprised if Potter never claimed them at all.

Potter dropped his eyes and nodded. “I would have testified for her anyway.”

“I know. As for the tradition side of it, it’s strange in a way, but there are some parts of magic which are so ancient they don’t really require any special ritual or ceremony. When my father passed on the inheritance to me, for instance, all it needed was a mingling of our blood and for us both to state our intention. Some of the old magic is even more elemental than that - the kind that came from your death, or your mother’s, for instance. It’s a type of magic that flows directly from people’s actions, or who they are.”

Draco waited to see if Potter would go off on one about blood magic and old magic and how evil it all was, but his thoughts seemed to be going down a different track.

“What’s your elf magic like then? You can shape wood?”

“And water. Would you like me to show you?”

Potter’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, go on.”

Draco reached for his glass of water, which was still a third full. He passed his palm over the top of the glass and then turned his hand upwards and closed his fingers, as if he had taken a handful of air. He pulled upwards and the water rose obediently out of the glass, floating in a loose ball. Draco opened his hand and began to circle the water with a finger. The water started turning, getting faster and faster until it had formed into a tiny miniature whirlpool, spinning like a top.

Draco looked up, and grinned at Potter’s wide-eyed expression. “Any requests, Potter? I’ve only tried with water once before, but I think it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t need much practice.”

Potter worried his bottom lip with his thumb. “A broomstick?”

“Okay.”

Draco scooped a hand under the tiny whirlpool and raised it up to hover closer in front of his face. He imagined what he wanted, putting as much detail into the image as he could manage. It seemed a little more difficult than when he’d formed the cobra, possibly because he didn’t have much water to work with, but still the water immediately stopped spinning and reshaped into the shape of a broomstick - with a tiny Potter riding on top of it. You couldn’t really tell it was Potter, of course, the face was too smooth, but there was an indication of quidditch robes.

With a smirk of triumph Draco set it loose, sending the model to fly over and circle round the real Potter’s head, dive-bombing his face in a flawless Wronski feint before pulling up and hovering at Potter’s eye-level so that he could take a closer look.

Potter laughed and peered closer. “Is that _me?_”

“Yes. Although you can only tell because of the hair, can’t you?”

Potter grinned. “Yep. Can you do yourself too?”

“Pass me some water then.”

Potter filled his own glass with an _Aguamenti _and slid it over the table. Draco easily separated a blob of the same size as before, and then spent a moment thinking about how he looked on a broom.

The water, both the blob in front of his face and the small model in front of Potter’s, fell and splashed on the surface of the table.

“Malfoy? What’s wrong?”

Draco felt as though he had just been punched in the stomach.

“Potter. I can’t fly anymore.”

“What? Oh… because of your leg?”

Draco nodded, staring sightlessly at the wet table.

“No, wait, Malfoy… it’s only your leg, right? Surely there are modified broomsticks to help with the balance?”

Draco felt a flicker of hope, which, for some reason, in the next second, made him angry. “Quidditch, Potter! Seeking! I’m not interested in flying if I can’t do it well enough to keep up with _you!_”

Potter looked stricken. The pity still hadn’t left his eyes. Draco hated it, hated _him_.

“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t want you to feel _sorry_ for me. I fucking deserve this! Why should I ever get to fly again? _I tried to get you killed!_”

Potter’s face hardened, which was much better. But the words he said were still far too kind. “Malfoy, no-one deserves or doesn’t deserve a life-changing injury. It’s just a thing that happens, that has to be dealt with.”

“_NO!_ No, you don’t understand. I’ve done so much shit - so much - _look!_” He turned on his chair and leaned over to pull the sheet of parchment from under his pillow. He thrust it into Potter’s face.

Potter frowned as he read, his lips pressed tight together. Draco felt himself deflate a bit as he waited, and he fidgeted with his shirt cuff. He hadn’t meant to show that list to anyone, least of all Potter, and he fought the impulse to snatch it back.

Finally, Potter looked up. “Over half of these things are _not _your fault. You were coerced. I don’t think it counts if you used Unforgivables under threat of an Unforgivable yourself. That’s all on Tom.”

Draco clenched his fists. “_You_ wouldn’t have done it, Potter.”

Potter gave a half-smile. “I’ve used Unforgivables, and not even under coercion, either.”

Draco glared at him, breathing hard. “When?”

“I used the _Imperius_ while breaking into Gringott’s.” _He broke into Gringott’s?!_ “And the _Cruciatus_ on Carrow. That one wasn’t even life-or-death. He spat in Professor McGonagall’s face, and I was angry. And I don’t feel anywhere near as guilty for that as I do about cutting you open that time, and _that_ was an accident.”

Draco touched his chest. “I deserved it, Potter. I was trying to _crucio _you, and all you’d done was catch me crying.”

Potter’s eyes flashed, and he looked angry for the first time. “_No one _deserves to be _gutted_, Malfoy! If Snape hadn’t been there you’d have _died! _You’re not the only one who’s ever wronged someone, for God’s sake!”

They both stared at each other. After a moment, Potter took a deep breath. “Do you get what I’m trying to say?”

“You’re saying… that you’ve done bad things, too, and that I’m being too hard on myself?”

“Yes. _Thank _you. You need to get a bit of perspective, Malfoy. You’re only human, and you were in an impossible position.”

“I still don’t believe you would have ever wanted to become a Death Eater in the first place.”

Potter shrugged. “If I had been in your place, and lived your life, I don’t see that I could have done things much differently. I never had to find a way to be in Tom’s presence for weeks at a time. I never had the option to try and appease him. It’s not courage to fight him when it’s the only choice you have, and it’s not cowardice to adapt to survive. Maybe I wouldn’t have bullied people at school, and _maybe _I’d have reached out to Dumbledore and asked for his protection instead of trying to kill him. But your parents influenced you on those things too. The bullying and prejudice _is_ your fault, but I can still kind of see how, if I’d been brainwashed into feeling superior, it might have been easy to act like an entitled little git.”

Draco bristled, but he couldn’t argue. He’d never thought of himself as a bully before, but it was the right word, wasn’t it? And beneath the reflexive offence, a part of him was desperate to believe Potter’s words.

“I still should be getting punished worse than I am, though. I’ve got out of having a proper trial, of serving time in Azkaban. I - I would have faced it, Potter, I _would_, but I had to be able to complete the monthly ritual for my ancestors.”

“This Path thing doesn’t seem easy to me, Malfoy. It sounds a lot more risky than Azkaban, especially since they’re not going to be putting the Dementors back. You could die if it goes wrong! And you haven’t had it easy until now, either. You’ve suffered just as much as the rest of us, even if it was on the wrong side.”

Draco glowered, but gave Potter a reluctant nod.

“Anyway, look, Malfoy, I should probably be getting back to Hogwarts for the night. But all I’m saying is that you’re not doing anyone any good if you go around beating yourself up. Sure, absolutely, go ahead and do these tasks to pay penance, it’s certainly got some poetic justice to it, but you’ve got to _also _do things to rebuild your life. Which includes finding ways to do things you like to do, like beat me at Quidditch, even with a hole in your leg.”

Draco sighed. He knew what he had to do next, and he didn’t want to do it. But Potter, _damn him_, was right.

He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the piece of strange Muggle parchment.

“In that case, Potter, please could you tell me how to get to - ” he checked the address, “Harley Street?”


	7. 8th May, 1998

In other circumstances, Draco would have felt pissed off after a night spent on the most uncomfortable mattress he had ever had the misfortune to encounter. His back ached almost as much as his leg. But as it was, that discomfort barely registered, because today he had to talk to muggles.

He stumbled through making himself breakfast (another first). There wasn’t much to eat, since Potter had never actually done any food shopping last night, so Draco was reduced to eating some left-over plain rice from the curry. However, there were a few tea bags still left in the cupboard, and at least Potter had shown him how to use the kettle.

He didn’t know what to do with the dirty plate and mug afterwards, so he stacked them on the kitchen counter and went to have a shower. The bathroom was tiny and the water lukewarm, and the high side of the bath was exceedingly awkward to step in and out of with only one good leg. He ended up sitting on the rim of the bath and pivoting to lift each leg over the greyish porcelain.

Dressing himself brought yet another first: a muggle T-shirt and jeans. Weasley had left them in the drawer under one of the bunk beds, and they fit relatively well. Draco felt quite strange wearing the outfit, but he couldn’t decide if it was weirder to be wearing muggle clothing or to be wearing something of Weasley’s. Ah well, at least the clothes were comfortable, and Potter assured him that they would be more appropriate than wearing the shirt and trousers from his school uniform. Naturally, Potter had also ruled out any of the robes packed in his trunk, even the casual ones.

The simple acts of showering and dressing himself took a long time, but even so, he knew he still had hours to kill before his afternoon appointment with this muggle healer.

He retrieved the letter from his uniform trouser pocket, and smoothed out the too-thin not-parchment. He read the details through again, although he already had them memorised: Dr. Anne Liston, 3pm, Phoenix Physiotherapy, Harley Street. He frowned at the address. How did this muggle woman know about phoenixes?

He tried to settle with the SAS survival guide again, as it had been quite interesting yesterday, but he couldn’t focus. He _knew _he had lots of time, but he couldn’t stop himself glancing at his Malfoy pocket watch every twenty seconds. He was glad he had had such a plain breakfast: he felt nauseous with nerves.

He checked the pocket watch again. The delicate gold hands told him it was barely nine thirty. Potter had ordered him a muggle carriage - a car - no, a _taxi_, for 2pm. Apparently that was way earlier than necessary, but Draco didn’t want to take any chances. He sighed and turned back to his book.

***

At half one, Draco couldn’t take it any more. He heaved himself up off the bed, gripped his crutches with clammy palms, and began to get ready to leave. He counted the muggle money that Potter had left him (of course, Draco had paid him back in galleons, and had even erred on the generous side as neither of them had been sure about the exchange rate). He carefully transferred the strange coins and flimsy scraps to his money pouch. He tied the money pouch to one of the denim belt loops, wishing he could wear a robe like normal, because the pouch did look a little ridiculous bouncing against his hip.

He laboriously rolled up his socks so he could get them on more easily; he winced as he tried to manoeuvre his left foot into his school shoe without pressuring his calf muscle. Finally, he considered the issue of outerwear. Weasley had left a ratty Chudley Cannons’ sweater behind, but Draco could not bring himself to wear it. If he’d had his wand, then _maybe _he could have changed its eye-watering colour into something halfway acceptable, but as it was, no. With a sigh, he reached into his school trunk and unearthed his least-elaborate summer cloak, a light, plain grey with a tasteful green trim at the very edges. He would probably look odd to the muggles, but even though it was a warm day, it was still Britain, and he wasn’t taking the risk of going anywhere in just this thin T-shirt without being able to cast an _Impervius _charm. Besides, the T-shirt reminded him of nothing more than his night-shirt, and the cloak helped him to feel a bit less underdressed.

He looked around the tent carefully twice before concluding there was nothing else he needed to take, and then ducked out under the tent-flap. He blinked in the strong sunlight and adjusted his grip nervously on his crutches, looking around the whole square for any sign of muggles. No-one was walking around, or looking out of the windows, as far as Draco could see. Despite that, he could feel his breath suddenly coming faster, and his heart had already been pounding, and despite not having any lunch, he was beginning to feel sick…

He closed his eyes and held tighter to the crutches, letting the smooth touch soothe him. He let a little of the old magic out through his hands, sensing the essence of the wood. He could outline the shape of the crutches without looking down. The wood was long dead, but Draco knew that if he asked, it would come alive again for him, grow for him, defend him. It was good to know that he had some way of protecting himself; he had already fought off both his uncle and Peeves, hadn’t he? And _they _had magic. What could the muggles do to him? Nothing. Still, he wished he had his wand.

He fished his pocket watch out from the jeans with one hand, awkwardly using the rest of his arm to prevent the crutch from falling over. It was already five to two. Shit! Where had the time gone? He must have been warding off his panic for longer than he thought. He had to leave the protection of the wards, and he didn’t feel ready yet. He swallowed and took a deep breath against the resurgence of nerves. He would never feel ready. All he had to do was get himself to the pavement so that he would be visible to the muggle chauffeur when they arrived in the taxi.

He swung his crutches and ventured forth through the shimmer of the wards, imagining he could feel a slight comforting tingle as he passed through them. He fixed his eyes on the sad-looking beech tree at the corner of the grass square and made his way over to it, breathing a sigh of relief when he was safely underneath. Then he remembered that Potter had erected a Notice-Me-Not charm here, and reluctantly left its shade to linger on the ugly pavement instead. Why muggles insisted on building all their roads and pavements from this awful tarmac stuff, he would never understand. Give him some paving slabs or cobble stones any day, at least they had personality…

He only realised that he had distracted himself quite nicely with his internal ranting when the taxi drew up right in front of him. It was large and shiny-black and conveniently had ‘taxi’ written in a small glowing orange sign at the front of the roof. He had never been so close to a moving car and he nearly lost his balance as he jumped backwards, triggering a spasm in his leg when he landed awkwardly. He hissed and squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for the pain to pass.

“Are you all right, lad?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Draco said, acting on pure social reflex, before he even registered that these would be the first words he had ever spoken to a muggle.

Draco opened his eyes. The muggle had leant over and somehow caused the window to open, and Draco could see a man’s wrinkled face, his features somehow akin to Potter’s in the shade of his skin and the black of his hair, with a hint of concern in his dark eyes.

“Is it your leg? Here, I’ll come round and get the door for you.”

The next moment the man was walking around the front of the car towards him. Draco froze, but, barring a bit of an odd look at his cloak, the man didn’t approach closer than to operate the unfamiliar handle on the car door and open it with a soft clunk.

“I’ll just move the seat back a bit further, hold on…”

He leant inside the low door for a moment, and Draco heard another metallic clunk before the man withdrew and stood back politely. Draco was impressed by the man’s easy manners, and he managed to give a stiff nod of acknowledgement as he stepped up to the car.

The trouble was that the opening was so _low_, barely up to his chest. How did muggles get in and out of these things with anything resembling dignity? With his hands occupied by his crutches, it was a lost cause.

“Pass me the crutches, son, that’ll make it a bit easier.”

Draco flinched a bit when he stepped closer, but to his credit, the man pretended not to notice, instead holding his hand out patiently. Draco was a second late in responding, but then he made his arms move and passed the crutches over. Now that he could use one hand on the roof and one on the open door, it was easier to twist around on one leg and lower himself in, although he still dropped the last few inches into the padded seat with a bit of a _whump_.

“Excellent. Crutches incoming…”

Draco took them from the man and arranged them between his legs. The man closed the car door, causing Draco to startle yet again, and walked around the car to his own side, which had a lot of complicated-looking dials and wheels and levers.

“Right, your booking is to Harley Street, right?”

Draco nodded. The man was sitting so close, but his attention was on the road in front of them. He manipulated a stick in between them and did something with his feet, and all at once the car was moving.

“Oh - put your seatbelt on, yeah? Only it’s my responsibility if you don’t, see.”

Draco couldn’t really understand what the man was talking about. He was too busy staring through the glass in front of them. They seemed to be _far _too close to the parked cars beside them - and then the car turned the corner of the square and picked up speed, heading straight towards a road with lots and lots of _other_ moving cars, all speeding directly across their path.

“Mate? Your seatbelt?”

The driver had mercifully pulled the car to a stop just before they rolled right out into the oncoming traffic, and was looking over at Draco.

“My what, sorry?” Draco was proud he had managed to speak, although he would admit his voice sounded breathy.

“Your - ? You know, your seatbelt? Like this?”

The man tugged on a grey strap that was running across his chest, and Draco followed it down to where it seemed to be lodged securely in some kind of latch mechanism with a bright red button. Draco looked around, but couldn’t see where his was meant to come from.

“Behind you - by your left shoulder - that’s it!”

Draco found the strap and wrestled it over himself, although it kept jarring when he yanked on it.

“Easy does it, mate, nice and smooth, yeah?”

Draco took the man’s suggestion and found the ‘seatbelt’ came much easier, and the latching mechanism was surprisingly intuitive to work out. Another clunk sound and the strap was in place, and the man nodded to show his satisfaction.

Draco spared a moment to feel grateful that this man was clearly restraining his curiosity about why Draco didn’t know how to use a seatbelt, but the next moment he was once again occupied by the terror of the car moving out into the new, busy road. By some miracle the driver avoided all of the other hulking metal machines, and it was less alarming once they were in line with the others, all moving the same way, but still, the cars on the other side passed them by mere inches. The muggle man seemed to notice Draco’s death-grip on the seat beneath him and once again proved his worth by not attempting to speak to Draco for the rest of the journey.

***

Draco had _nearly _started to trust that the driver wouldn’t hit anything with his car when he eased them out of the flow and stopped by the edge of a pavement.

“Here we are. That’ll be eight pounds fifty, lad.”

Draco fumbled for his money-pouch, pulling out a handful of crumpled notes and random coins. He stared at them for a moment, before the man seemed to realise that he needed help with this too and plucked one of the notes from his hands.

“Two secs…” he said, and then dumped a handful of coins into Draco’s still-open palm.

“Th-thank you.”

Draco stuffed all the muggle money back into his pouch, not even bothering to try and count his change.

He managed to operate the simple red button to release his seatbelt, and he even figured out how to pull on the metal handle to open the door, but getting up and out onto the pavement was intimidating.

“Hold on, lad, I’ll come round and give you a hand,” said the driver.

A hand? The muggle was going to touch him? Oh, Gods…

The man was already standing outside the door, reaching out a broad, brown hand towards him.

“Just swing your legs out first and then get your crutches ready.”

Draco nodded, swallowed, and followed the instructions. His cloak got in his way a little but soon he was at least turned fully towards the pavement.

“That’s it! Now grab my hand and haul away.”

Draco took a deep breath, planted his right foot against the ground, and seized the muggle’s hand. It was dry and warm, and in one smooth movement the man had pulled him up and out.

“There we go, nothing to it.” The man was beaming at him from a bare metre away in the sunlight. Draco couldn’t help but give him a small smile in return, which seemed to please the man immensely. Draco realised how lucky he’d been to get such a nice muggle as his driver. Just as the man turned to go, Draco managed to get his voice to work.

“Wait! Sorry, um - would you be able to come back here at, er, about 4pm?”

“Sure, of course. See you then, lad.”

“Yes, see you then. And, thank you. Again.”

“You are most welcome, son.”

The man got into his big black car and drove away.

Draco stood watching the spot where he’d lost track of the taxi as it got absorbed back into the other traffic, just breathing. So. His first muggle. His first car-ride. Not so bad.

Eventually he recovered enough of his presence of mind to look around. The pavement here was much wider and cleaner than at Grimmauld Place, and the buildings rose regal and imposing and white. Draco was grateful to spot his destination almost immediately, just a little way along the street - a large free-standing black sign declared in gold capitals, ‘Phoenix Physiotherapy’ with the names of six or seven different muggle healers listed underneath in smaller writing. It also had a stylised picture of a bird rising from a gold flame. Draco swung himself over to it, and saw Dr. Anne Liston’s name first on the list, followed by a jumble of letters that perhaps equated to some kind of muggle titles or qualifications.

The entrance was an imposing marble portico, flanked with pillars and black railings and approached by three broad steps up. Draco awkwardly hopped up them on his crutches. He paused before the huge, shiny black door, his heart beating madly. At least the man in the taxi had been friendly. This place was designed to be intimidating.

He gripped his crutches tighter. Was he or was he not a Malfoy? Did he or did he not own Malfoy Manor? And he thought _this _pathetic muggle building was imposing?

He turned the handle, pushed open the door and did his best to stride in confidently, if striding was possible using only one leg.

The marble continued inside, on both the walls and floor. Directly in front of him a corridor continued deeper into the building, and to the side a muggle woman sat behind a long, high reception desk. She wore a bright pink blouse which matched her bright pink lipstick, and seemed to be only a few years older than Draco. For a second, they both looked at each other without saying anything. The woman seemed a bit surprised at his appearance, and was not nearly as good as the taxi driver at hiding it. Draco shifted uneasily - he knew wearing the cloak had been a mistake.

The woman was too rude to break the silence and do her job, so Draco would have to do it for her. He moved forwards towards her desk and said, “My name is Draco Malfoy, I have an appointment with healer - er, with Anne Liston?”

At that the woman finally blinked and got over herself. She looked down at a large appointment book in front of her and ran her finger along the entries.

“Ah yes, I see, Mr MacFoy, for 3pm?”

“Yes. And it’s Malfoy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, you’re a little early, so if you’d like to take a seat in the waiting area, the doctor will come out and call for you when she’s ready.”

Draco nodded and turned to his right. Several shiny black arm chairs were arranged with perpendicular precision around a very square, glass coffee table. There were a couple of wide windows looking back out onto the street, and two handsome wooden bookcases filled with various muggle medical texts set into the far wall.

Draco chose the chair that kept his back to the wall so he could keep an eye on the receptionist. He noticed a stack of magazines (why was everything so shiny around here?), with strange, stationary photos plastered across the cover.

The stiff black fabric of the chair creaked as he sat down. His cloak made it a little slippery to sit on. He sat with rigid posture, unable to relax. He thought about picking up the top magazine, but it didn’t look at all appealing and anyway, his breath was beginning to come short again. He worked to keep it silent in this quiet room so that the rude receptionist woman wouldn’t notice. He didn’t dare look directly at her, but he thought that he wasn’t imagining the glances she was giving him out of the corner of her eye. What did she think of him? He knew his discomfort must be obvious and he wanted to cringe.

The minutes passed with excruciating slowness. He wanted to get out his pocket watch, but he had a feeling it wasn’t a very muggle item and he was too embarrassed to reach for it. He could hear the tick of a clock just above him on the wall, but he didn’t want to crane around to see it, he would look stupid if he did that. He settled his crutches against one side of the arm chair and gripped his hands together tightly. They were getting sweaty. He could feel sweat beginning to prick at the edges of his hairline too. Oh Gods, why was he here? These muggles couldn’t help him! If magic couldn’t fix his leg, how could a muggle? More likely they’d cut it off, yes, and they would have to hold him down while he screamed from the pain, and it would take ages, because they would have to cut through every part of his leg slowly with a knife…

He broke out of his reverie slightly when the receptionist abruptly got up and walked down the corridor. He hadn’t realised his breathing had gotten so loud. Oh Merlin, she had watched him coming apart at the seams, he hadn’t hid it at all, and now she was going to warn Anne Liston about what a mess he was. He had to get out of here, quickly, before she came back -

He had hardly managed to get himself to his feet (foot) before the young receptionist was back, followed by an older woman wearing a neat red cardigan and loose grey trousers. She was tall, solid-looking, white, and had her hair cut shorter than his own, even though she was probably older than his mother. Draco couldn’t help but stare a little. He wasn’t used to seeing women wearing trousers, and the only woman he knew with a short hair-style was Madam Hooch.

“Hello, Mr Malfoy, I’m doctor Anne Liston - please follow me,” she said, not batting an eye at his cloak, and walked away with the unquestioning expectation that Draco would follow. He did, somehow soothed by her air of authority.

Anne Liston held open the second door on the right for him, which led into a large, airy room, with, thankfully, a wooden floor and no marble anywhere. The wall on his left had another pair of large windows looking out onto a different muggle street, and in the far right corner was a desk with couple of chairs - another shiny black armchair on the ‘patient’ side and a strange chair with wheels on the ‘healer’ side.

A very bare, high, narrow bed, with some kind of thin blue mattress and only parchment for a covering, sat in the middle of the room, and Draco immediately wanted to leave - he didn’t want to lie on that thing while this muggle stood over him, touching him. He came to a halt only a step or two past the door and held his crutches tightly. That’s right; she couldn’t do anything to him. If she tried to, then he could grow a murder tree right out of her floorboards, see if he wouldn’t.

“Please take a seat, Mr Malfoy,” said Anne Liston, and Draco noticed that she was already sitting down in that rolling chair. He took a look at her, sitting with her hands clasped in front of her red cardigan, and even with his heart-rate heightened he couldn’t persuade himself that she meant him any harm. There was no need for breaking the Statute of Secrecy just yet.

He slowly swung across the room and lowered himself onto the armchair on the other side of her desk.

“So, Mr Malfoy, Poppy has informed me that you are a wizard.”

No need for the Statute of Secrecy at all, then. He could only stare.

Anne Liston smiled. “Poppy and I go back a long way, Mr Malfoy. We did a good deal of medical training together. And unfortunately, you are not the only patient that she has needed to refer to me during this terrible war you’re having.”

“Oh - it’s over. The war. It finished last week.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Oh, is that so? That is excellent news. You would think Poppy would have mentioned it in her letter. But I suppose she is very busy with casualties at the moment.”

Draco nodded. It was so strange that this muggle _knew_. Here he had been so caught up in how far away he was from the Wizarding world and the war had made it here too, into the heart of muggle London. He couldn’t decide if that was reassuring or not.

Probably not reassuring at all, actually. If this woman had been involved in the war in even a marginal way, it wouldn’t have been on his side. “How much - er, how much do you know about the war?”

“I know enough, Mr Malfoy. I know this You-Know-Who fellow is essentially your standard wizard Hitler. I suppose he’s dead now?”

“Yes. Yes, he is, Harry Potter killed him on Saturday. Um, who is Hitler?”

Anne Liston sat back in her chair, and gave him a long, level look. “Ah. I see.”

Draco fought the urge to squirm under her gaze. He had a nasty feeling he had just made a serious faux-pas.

After another couple of seconds of him looking anywhere but at her gaze, the healer - doctor - seemed to take pity on him.

“How old are you, Mr Malfoy?”

“I’m seventeen.”

“Hmm. You are truly a child of war, then. And is this your first time out and about in our world?”

Draco sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have worn my cloak.”

Doctor Liston’s eyes sparkled. “It does make it a tad obvious, Mr Malfoy, but only to those in the know.”

Draco fumbled with the cloak fastening, suddenly embarrassed to be wearing it. It was warm enough in this room without it, anyway. He slipped it off his shoulders so it lay on the back of the armchair. Still, despite the slight humiliation, it was getting easier and easier to talk to this woman. It was nice to meet someone who knew so little about him, he realised. She seemed to have assumed that he was on the winning side in the war and he wasn’t about to correct that assumption.

“You’re the third muggle I’ve ever spoken to.”

“Really, I would never have guessed. And who were the other two?”

“My driver in the taxi, and your Welcome Witch - your receptionist.”

“This _is _a big day, then!”

“It has certainly contained a few firsts.”

“Well, congratulations on leaving your comfort zone. I know it isn’t easy. So, if you wouldn’t mind, could you tell me about your injury?”

Draco blinked, and was taken off guard by a brief, vivid sense-memory of wood under his hands, heat all around him and smoke in his lungs. His breath caught as if the smoke was real and he descended into a coughing fit.

The doctor was looking at him shrewdly when he surfaced. “You don’t have to tell me how you got injured, Mr Malfoy, only in what ways it has limited your movement.”

Draco nodded as he got his breath back, and felt another surge of gratitude that he had somehow found such an astute muggle with whom to converse. First the kindness of the man in the taxi, and now this doctor’s no-nonsense compassion; talking to muggles was truly going better than he would have dared hope.

“Well, it’s my leg. It - it’s probably easier to show you.”

“Go ahead.”

Draco put his crutches down on the floor and rolled up the rough denim of the left leg of the jeans. He startled a little at a low rumbling sound, but when he looked up, he saw it was just the sound that the wheels of the doctor’s chair as she pulled herself around her desk to take a closer look.

Draco straightened his leg out a bit so she could see. The chunk taken out of the back of his calf was in an awkward place, since even while lifting it up it still faced the floor, but Anne Liston did not reach out and take hold of his leg, nor did she suggest that they move to the bed for a proper examination.

“Ouch. Okay. So this looks like a burn? Or a bite?”

“Yes.”

“Which one - ?”

“Both.”

“Ah. Right. And how long ago did this happen?”

“Saturday.”

“I see. Magic, I always forget. So the skin itself looks to be well-healed, although scarred. I presume it’s the loss of muscle which is causing problems?”

“Yes. I can’t put any pressure on my leg. If I use the muscle then it seizes up and starts cramping.”

“Okay. I think, then, I’m going to need to see that happening.”

“You want me to trigger it? Deliberately?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. How bad is the pain when it’s triggered, from a one to ten, say?”

“Well, if ten is a _Cruciatus, _then I’d say… a five.”

“Okay. Well, if you wouldn’t mind trying to stand on that leg? You can hold on to the desk so you can stay upright and I’ll be able to watch the muscle from here.”

Draco grabbed one of the crutches off the floor, and with that under one arm and his other hand against the desk, he got enough leverage to hop up onto his right foot. He turned towards the desk and the doctor rolled herself behind him, where she could finally get a clear view of the hole in his leg.

“Okay, whenever you’re ready. Just let the leg take enough weight to trigger the cramps.”

Draco nodded, and slowly eased his left foot onto the floor. He was able to touch the sole of his shoe down with no ill effects, but as soon as he actually pressed rather than hovered, the cramping gripped his calf. The pain radiated all the way down to his heel and up to the back of his knee. Draco gripped the desk tightly and couldn’t help the way he hissed, squeezed his eyes shut, and tensed. He couldn’t even reach down and knead his leg with his knuckles to help ease them faster.

Finally, his leg settled down again, and he sucked in a couple of restoring breaths with relief.

“Well. I won’t ask what a _Cruciatus_ is, if _that _is a five in comparison.”

Draco blinked. For a moment, he had forgotten this woman wasn’t a witch.

“Okay. You can sit down again, Mr Malfoy. I won’t make you do that again, don’t worry.”

Draco lowered himself back to the armchair while the doctor rolled back around to her side of the desk, reaching for a notebook and beginning to scribble into it. Draco heard her muttering, “… perhaps eighty percent muscle loss…”

After a couple of minutes, she looked up again. “Right, well, the diagnosis is very simple, as I’m sure you’ve figured out: the muscle remaining in your leg isn’t strong enough to take your weight. I also suspect that the muscle underneath the regrown skin has formed its own scar tissue, which is preventing the remaining muscle fibres from contracting and moving over each other as freely as they should. How much do you know about the way muscles work?”

Draco opened his mouth, and then shut it again. “Not a lot.”

“As I thought. Okay.” She span around in her chair and indicated a poster up on the wall behind her, showing various grisly medical diagrams of what parts of a person might look like without any skin. “So, muscles are formed from thousands of these long, rope-like bundles of muscle cells, and _those_ can either relax and get all skinny, or they can bunch up and get all fat, which then tugs on your bones and causes movement. There’s almost always an opposing pair of muscle groups, like the biceps and triceps in your arm here, so when one is contracting the other is extending. So you can see that if there was some scar tissue binding all these little ropes together, none of them would be able to move across each other freely. There’s a lot more going on in terms of how these cells are triggered, but that’s the basics. Any questions?”

Draco shook his head, a little shocked. He’d had no idea about any of that. He had never thought to think about how any part of his body actually worked. He supposed that if he’d thought about it, he would have said it was magic. But that was idiotic; muggles existed, and _their _bodies couldn’t be tied together with magic, could they? Suddenly, he realised how complicated his body was, and he was burning with curiosity. But he didn’t want to reveal any more of his ignorance to this muggle. It didn’t seem right for him to know so much less than her.

“Right, so when your muscle is getting overloaded, the spasming is caused by the triggering mechanism for the contracting and relaxing going haywire. The bundle of fibres isn’t acting in concert any more; different strands of muscle cells are firing all at different times.”

“So there’s nothing you can do?”

“What? That’s not what I said, Mr Malfoy. There is a lot we can do to improve your situation. Our first ports of call are going to be breaking up the scar tissue, and strengthening the remaining muscle so that it doesn’t get so easily overloaded.”

“And how long will that take?”

“Depending on how much consistent effort you put into the exercises, I’m confident we’ll see significant improvement within three or four months.”

“Months? That’s ages!”

“I’m aware this may be a bit of a culture shock for you, Mr Malfoy, but when you don’t have magic, there is no instant fix.”

Anne Liston’s voice was stern, and Draco felt sufficiently rebuked.

“So - but after that, my leg will work as well as it did before? Even without the muscle?”

“It will never be as strong as it was when it was whole. However, I am confident we can achieve meaningful rehabilitation here. If you work hard, you’ll be able to walk again without crutches, although there will still be some level of limp, and you will probably still use a cane for support. I doubt you’ll be able to run much, but a lot of other forms of exercise will be open to you.”

“That doesn’t sound like rehabilitation - that’s hardly better than now!”

“It is a _lot_ better than what you have now. You will have most of the function of your leg. You will not suffer from debilitating and painful muscle seizures. You will be able to live a much less restricted life.”

“It’ll still be much _more _restricted than it used to be.”

“Yes. That’s right. I’m afraid that is the reality that I am here to help you face, Mr Malfoy: there is no complete, nor instant, fix to this problem. I don’t believe in sugar-coating things like this, it doesn’t help. You have a disability now. That means your abilities are more restricted than they used to be.”

Draco gritted his teeth. He wanted very much to get angry at this upstart muggle. Who did she think she was to tell him, Draco Malfoy, what he could and couldn’t do? He took a breath through his nose, then another one, glaring across the desk at the doctor, who didn’t look nearly as cowed as she should. In fact she was looking at him with - was that _compassion?_

His anger abruptly collapsed into anxiety. This woman may be a muggle, but she was also a healer. Healers _did _get to tell you what to do, no matter who you were. And she certainly seemed to know a fair amount about the human body. If she said he would be disabled for life, then he probably would be.

He had thought he’d already accepted that as a fact, but it wasn’t until now that he realised that he was hoping this muggle would supply him with some miracle solution. He just didn’t know how he was going to cope, living like this forever.

Anne Liston seemed to be able to read a lot of what he was feeling on his face, which was embarrassing. He wasn’t acting like a Malfoy at all, today.

“I do sympathise, Mr Malfoy. This is hard. But you’ve survived a war; you can adjust to this. And the best way to channel that frustration is into working hard on your exercises that I’m going to show you. First, though, I’m going to start breaking up the scar tissue in the muscle with a massage. Can you get up onto the bed, please?”

This woman truly did have a natural air of authority. For a strange moment, Draco felt as if he was in the presence of his mother. To his surprise, he discovered that he would rather lie down on the bed than humiliate himself with a silly tantrum. So, with a heave and a hop that was becoming more practised every time, he got up onto his crutches and followed her across the room.

***

The rest of the appointment went as smoothly as could be reasonably hoped for. There was a dicey moment when Draco was lying face down on that narrow bed and Anne Liston touched his calf for the first time. Draco tensed up, expecting the cramps to start, but it was clear this healer knew what she was doing. The massage hurt - quite a lot, when she dug her fingers into the missing flesh - but not nearly as badly as the cramps did. And afterwards, Draco could tell that the muscle felt slightly looser somehow.

He was almost happy to see the same taxi driver man again, and he had a strange urge to tell him about the appointment, and the exercises he was supposed to do twice a day. Fortunately, he was too terrified by the movement of all the cars around them to open his mouth. He did, however, remember to arrange for the man to pick him up again for his appointment next Tuesday.

It was about seven in the evening when Potter came bursting into the tent. Draco was sitting in the chair trying to count the remaining muggle money; he was getting his nerve up to go and buy some food from somewhere, but his hunger had not yet got worse than his reluctance to face the muggle world twice in one day.

Potter looked awful. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hair was sticking almost straight up, and his black formal robes were half unbuttoned, revealing a glimpse of a ratty T-shirt underneath. He was holding a large bottle of firewhiskey in one hand, and a crinkly bag of takeaway in the other. Draco’s stomach swooped a little as he remembered where Potter had been today: Fred Weasley’s funeral.

For a moment they both stayed still and looked at each other. Then Potter stepped forward, his movements slightly jerky, and put the bag of takeaway down on the small table.

“I got us Indian again, hope that’s okay,” said Potter, his voice scratchy.

“Of course it is. It’s, er, kind of you. I was just trying to muster the courage to go find it myself. I didn’t expect you back today.”

“Oh. I guess maybe it is a bit strange to come here. I just couldn’t - ” Potter’s voice broke, and he stopped, clenching his jaw.

Draco hurried to speak before Potter did something stupid, like offer to go away again. “I don’t mind in the slightest, Potter. In fact, I’m glad to see you. And if your intention is to get black-out drunk, you’ve come to the right person.”

Potter looked down at the firewhiskey in his hand as if a bit surprised to see it there. “I guess that kind of is my intention. I’ve never actually done it before, though.”

“Well, fear not, Potter, I’m an expert. I have constructed quite a routine in the last year. Although only at school, of course, and a bit less on week-nights.”

“Why not at home?”

Draco’s stomach suddenly felt cold. “The Manor was not a place where I could let my guard down, Potter. A summons could come at any time.” Unbidden, his right hand came up to rub at the sleeve covering his bandaged left forearm.

“Oh, right, of course.” Potter’s mouth twisted. “Jesus. I can’t even imagine it.”

“Don’t bother. It sucked. And I don’t want to be forced into explaining it to you.”

“I get it, I get it, Tom was there and it was horrible and dangerous.”

Draco sighed in relief as the urge to talk left him. “Thanks. Yeah, that’s a fair summary, Potter. Anyway, I’m starving, I skipped lunch - let’s eat.”

Potter nodded, and rubbed his hand across his face as if searching for the energy to set out dinner. Draco was struck by how generous it was of Potter to stop at the Indian on his way here. He was sure that Potter didn’t really care about anything but finding a way to stop feeling right now, so he must have been thinking of Draco - even though Potter didn’t want to care.

“Potter, sit down. I’ll get us some plates.”

Potter lifted his hand from his face and stared at him. “But - your leg…”

“Yes, yes, I am held back by my leg, and, I know you’re thinking it, by having never actually set a table before - ”

Potter barked a laugh as he flopped down onto the bench, and Draco felt a small flare of victory in his chest, and had to suppress a smile. He hopped up onto his crutches and swung himself into the tiny kitchenette as he kept talking.

“ - but today is a day for firsts, Potter, and if I can talk to a muggle and survive, then I’m sure I can figure out how to put plates down on a flat surface.”

“A Malfoy and a muggle talked to each other? And the world didn’t implode?”

Potter’s voice was a bit weak, but Draco was delighted to have elicited this much interest from him. Perhaps Draco could return Potter’s kindness with inane, distracting babble.

“Apparently not. I must say, though, that I _did _think I was going to die when the taxi started moving. Would it hurt the other drivers to keep their cars just a little further away? I swear there was barely a foot between the cars on the left side and the right side of the road!”

Draco leant one crutch up against the side of the kitchenette so he could open the cupboard, and bring out two plates. It was awkward with one hand but he tried not to look like it was difficult. He didn’t want Potter to notice and then just levitate them over to the table. He wanted to do this. He turned and hopped back towards the table on one crutch, with the plates propped on his hip.

Potter was smiling. “Yeah, cars are death-traps, you wouldn’t believe how many muggles die in crashes every year.” He grinned at Draco’s appalled face. “But if my uncle could get away with driving like a maniac everywhere and never getting hurt then I reckon you have to be pretty unlucky for it to actually happen to you.”

_Oh, that’s fine then, lucky is my middle name, _Draco wanted to say, but he knew he would have to state that it was sarcasm, which rather took the fun out of it. He deposited the plates and hopped back to the kitchen for cutlery. “Well, at least the taxi driver was nice. I really liked him, actually. He didn’t ask any questions, and let me tell you, that was a good thing, because _I_ don’t even know what I was thinking wearing my cloak, apart from being constitutionally unable to stand the thought of wearing that Cannons sweater.”

Potter huffed a soft laugh. “Would it be better if it was black?”

“Yes, actually, that would be a fraction more respectable.”

“Hold on a minute, then.” And Potter was up and in the bedroom, kneeling over by the drawer beneath the bunk, muttering a spell. A moment later he held up his handiwork for Draco to see. The sweatshirt was now a midnight black.

“See, that is instantly about ten times less hideous, even if it is a shapeless sack.”

Potter smiled again. “So you’ll wear it next time?”

“Yes, I will. Thank you, Potter. And I’ll even put my money in the pocket of these jeans rather than in my money pouch. It’s a lot less secure when it isn’t underneath a layer of robes, anyway.” He deposited a handful of mixed cutlery on the table and eased himself back down onto the opposite bench to Potter, before reaching into the bag and beginning to sort out the little plistac and foil boxes.

Potter actually giggled. “You wore a cloak and a _money pouch _to your doctor’s appointment? What, you - you actually tied it to your jeans?”

Draco sniffed, pretending to look offended. “Yes I did, Potter, and we both know that’s because I’m a clueless, aristocratic prat.”

Potter beamed, and Draco couldn’t resist smiling back. “Yes, but we both know you’re not as prattish as you used to be, Malfoy.”

Draco’s smile faded. “I don’t know. I still did my best to get in your way last Saturday. Only a prat tries to stop someone who’s busy saving the world.”

“Damn it, Malfoy, don’t bring all that up again. No-one thought I was actually going to manage it, you know, so you were only being rational.”

“I’d rather have been brave than rational. But I was intending to take your mind off things, and now I’ve fucked that right up, so let’s eat. It’s very important to have a proper supper before getting black-out drunk, you know, Potter.”

“If you say so, Malfoy.”

The next few minutes were spent in awkward silence, eating the delicious, spicy, greasy food. Draco was glad to see a bit of colour coming back into Potter’s pale, brown cheeks as they finished off the last of the chicken korma.

Potter sat back with a sigh. “You know, I really thought I wasn’t hungry, but that was great. Again.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Potter brought his wand out and flicked it a few times, spelling the plates clean and then back into the cupboard, and vanishing the empty takeaway boxes. There was, once again, enough rice left over for Draco to eat it in the morning.

“So,” said Potter, looking gloomy, as if he just remembered why he wanted to be drunk.

“So. Right, first step is to make ourselves comfortable. I recommend we get the blankets off the bunk-beds and make nests over by that poor excuse of a fireplace. One doesn’t want to have to move anywhere once one is halfway through a firewhiskey bottle, and it’s best to pass out in a place that you wouldn’t mind sleeping in.”

Potter looked at him oddly. “You’re not going to ask why I want to get drunk?”

“Gods, no, Potter, that goes against the etiquette. Let alone the number of reasons which are perfectly obvious. And anyway, if you’re a talkative drunk then I’ll know all about it in an hour or two, unless I forget it by the morning of course.”

“I have no idea if I’m a talkative drunk or not.”

“Haven’t you even been _drunk _before?”

“No, not really. All I’ve had is butterbeer and, like, a sip of firewhiskey one time.”

“Huh. Saving the world really put a crimp in your being a teenager, didn’t it? Or was that being friends with Granger?”

Oh, shit. _Nice one, Draco. _He’d only watched her get _tortured _on his drawing room floor, done nothing while she _screamed_ -

Potter laughed. “A bit of both, probably. She’s come a long way, but I’m pretty sure Hermione still believes deep down that it’s worse to get expelled than killed.”

“Wow. Really?”

“Oh, yes. Back in first year she actually said that.”

Draco laughed. “That explains a lot, honestly. I’ve never seen a person more motivated to get good grades than Granger, but apparently she just had different priorities than the rest of us.”

“Pretty much.” Potter smiled fondly.

“Okay, let’s get this broom in the air. You can’t just down a whole bottle at once you know, you have to pace yourself, so we need to get started if you want to pass out before midnight.”

Potter chuckled and stood up, going to the bedroom to collect the blankets from all four bunks. He threw them over towards the fireplace. “You take this pretty seriously, don’t you?”

“Absolutely. Alcohol made life worth living for a while there.”

“Maybe it would have helped a bit on some of the nights we spent in this tent this year. God, it was grim.”

“All right, where’s a glass? You need whiskey, now.”

Potter summoned a couple of tumblers from the cupboard and, after wrestling with the bottle for a moment, poured them both a generous measure.

Draco got up and gathered the pillows from the bunk beds too, going over to the fireplace with them jammed under his arms and using a crutch to poke the tangle of blankets into two even piles. He then added two pillows to each pile and eased himself down to the floor, hard to do with one leg held out awkwardly. It was embarrassing to have Potter watch him struggle with such simple actions, so he busied himself getting all the blankets and pillows around and under him rather than meet his eyes.

Potter followed his lead, placing the tumblers down on the hearth and tucking his blankets around him in a much more haphazard fashion than Draco.

Draco nodded his approval, and they both reached for a glass at the same time. They lifted the tumblers and clinked them together, and then Draco took a sip and Potter attempted to drain his whole measure in one go. He cut himself off, spluttering, after only one gulp.

“Argh, fuck - it burns!”

“Potter, I wish I could tell you you are an uncivilised barbarian, but unfortunately, the Path spell won’t allow it. I thought you said you’d had firewhiskey before? You don’t just down it!”

“Yeah, I have - but I thought we were trying to get drunk here?”

“_Yes, _Potter, but there’s no need to be such a Gryffindor about it. The firewhiskey will be just as effective if you take a moment to enjoy it on the way down.”

Potter nodded, looking balefully into his glass, and tentatively took another sip. This time he swallowed with no difficulties.

“God, this stuff is fucking strong, isn’t it?”

“You better believe it. And I’m sure you weren’t swearing quite as much a moment ago.”

“Maybe I’m a sweary drunk.”

“You’re not even drunk yet, Potter.”

“Well then, I think I’ve just had an unbelievably shitty day.”

Draco wanted to make a remark about Potter becoming talkative before being drunk too, but he wasn’t stupid enough to interrupt. They just took more sips of their firewhiskey, both looking into the blue flickers of the tiny gas fire.

“So. Turns out I’m single now,” Potter said, in what was obviously intended to be a casual voice.

This wasn’t the direction Draco thought this conversation was going to go.

“Is that so?”

“Yep. Apparently Ginny is over me. She’s into Neville now.”

From the corner of his eye, Draco could see that Potter’s posture was as tense and brittle as his voice. Draco drew the firewhiskey bottle closer and poured himself another finger, before handing it to Potter. He waited another minute, but Potter seemed determined not to say anything more, and Draco could no longer resist commenting.

“So, hold on one moment, Potter, let me see if I understand this. She broke up with you at her brother’s funeral? At _your _brother’s funeral?”

Potter’s laugh was more of a bitter sob. “That’s - that’s about the size of it, yeah.”

Draco whistled between his teeth. “Well, fuck. No wonder you needed the firewhiskey.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Risking a quick glance, Draco saw Potter looking down into his lap where he held the whiskey tumbler. It was pretty clear that he was trying not to cry.

Draco wished he knew what else to say. He could go off on a rant about the Weaselette, but he didn’t know how much leeway Potter would feel comfortable giving him. Potter’s stupid sense of nobility would probably force him to speak up in her defence. And Potter needed the space to vent about her if he wanted, not defend her.

So they both sat in silence for a good while, making it through another couple of fingers each. They appeared quite well-matched in drinking speed, although judging by the flush beginning to rise up Potter’s face, Draco easily took the lead in holding his alcohol. _What a great thing to finally beat him at._

“It wasn’t - it wasn’t - ” Potter had to break off and take a deep breath. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! It was her I thought of, you know, just before I, before he - and every night in this fucking tent, I’d look at her little dot on the map - I just thought, you know, that we’d, that we were meant to - oh, it’s so fucking stupid. I’m not supposed to be upset about this! I’m meant to think about Fred, for God’s sake!”

On the word ‘Fred’, Potter’s voice finally cracked, and his breaths hitched into quiet sobs, his head bowed and his shoulders moving with each gulp of air.

If this was Pansy, or even Blaise, Draco would have already moved to wrap his arm around them, let their head fall down onto his shoulder. It would have surprised his parents to know how touchy-feely he was with his close friends, although never Crabbe or Goyle. He half-wished he could muster the courage to do it now, simply because Potter so clearly needed a hug. But it wasn’t Draco’s place to assume such a role.

“Oh God,” Potter said. His voice was thick but understandable. “It was - fucking _awful_. George - no-one could even _look_ at him - ”

Potter covered his whole face with his hand and shuddered, his sobs becoming louder and less controlled. It didn’t last very long, though. Within two minutes, Potter had got his feelings under wraps again. It seemed that Potter wasn’t used to letting go, even with alcohol loosening his inhibitions.

As soon as he stopped crying, Potter tipped his head back and drained his glass down in one, without even flinching. Then he held out his hand. Draco passed him the bottle.

“How much of this stuff do you have to drink before it all goes away?”

“For you, Potter, not much more.”

“Good.”

Potter refilled his glass and took another large swallow. They drank steadily for another twenty minutes before Potter spoke again, the words slightly slurred together.

“I don’t think I can take going to another funeral, Malfoy. But I can’t not go. I can’t. Maybe for some of them I could - but I have to be there, what the fuck am I thinking? They fought for _me_. And tomorrow - tomorrow is - fuck. Tonks and Lupin. Oh, Merlin. And guess what? I get to meet my godson! Little Teddy.” Potter’s breathing became distinctly uneven once more, and he brought his knees up and leant his head down on them, wrapping his arms round his legs. Draco didn’t think he was imagining Potter’s slight rocking motion back and forth.

“I didn’t want this, oh God, I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to take his parents away, not so soon… oh Merlin, he didn’t even have one whole fucking month with them, even I had a _year_, _Jesus_…”

Potter was now literally trying to tear his hair out. To hell with whether it was appropriate or not, Draco couldn’t let him just sit alone like this. He scooted over, the blankets coming along too in a tangle around his legs, got in as close as he could to Potter’s side and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Draco felt his own eyes prickle as Potter choked and curled tighter in on himself, his whole body juddering with misery.

“M-Malfoy - I c-can’t! I can’t go, I can’t face it, and now Ginny w-won’t even be there, well she _will, _but that’s worse, because I can’t face her, but I can’t face this without her - ”

“Ssh, Potter. Ssh. It’ll feel possible in the morning. I promise.”

“You can’t know that, Malfoy! You’re not s’posed to - not s’posed to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying, Potter. You can do this. You’re Harry fucking Potter, okay? You can do this.”

“Oh God, I wish I wasn’t, I really wish I wasn’t…”

And Potter just kept crying this time, great heaving sobs that went on and on, and no amount of Draco making gentle circles on his back with his hand seemed to help at all. Finally, Potter raised his head off his knees and turned his head to look straight at Draco, his whole face swollen and his eye-lashes clumped together with tears.

“Malfoy - would you - could you come with me? Tomorrow?”

Draco recoiled slightly. “What? Potter, you can’t be serious - they’d tear me limb from limb.” And that wasn’t even sarcasm.

Potter’s face crumpled and Draco felt instantly guilty.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry, Potter. I would if I could. I just don’t think it’d be very respectful.”

Potter nodded, fresh tears making their way silently down his face. Then his eyes lifted back to Draco’s face in sudden hope.

“You _can _come, Malfoy! My cloak! The invibli-invisilibity cloak! No-one’ll see you. You’ll come? Please?”

Draco bit his lip, but the look of naked disappointment gathering on Potter’s drunk face was too much to stand.

“Well. If you’re desperate enough to say please to me, Potter, I can’t really say no, can I?”


	8. 9th May, 1998

Draco grudgingly opened his eyes. His eyeballs felt gritty and his back was stiff from this horrible mattress. And his leg ached. The sunshine poured in through the cloth of the tent, hot and bright. It seemed to stab into his brain. Fuck. He was out of practice with this alcohol thing. Had it really only been a week since he had last blacked out in his bed in the Slytherin dorms? Had it really only been a week since the end of the war? It felt like six months.

Not that he had drunk enough to black out yesterday. Potter had succumbed to unconsciousness shortly after getting Draco to say he would come with him to the funeral. There was still a quarter of the bottle of fire whiskey left, but Draco didn’t actually want to drink it. (Definitely out of practice.) So he had tucked Potter up in his nest of blankets as best as he could (if he’d had his bloody wand, he would have levitated him to a bunk-bed) and wobbled into the bedroom on his crutches to pass out in a new bunk-bed, in the vain hope that its mattress would be more comfortable than the one he’d slept in before.

He rubbed his eyes, then rolled over and felt under the bed for his pocket watch. Some bleary squinting later, he determined that it was quarter past eleven.

He swung his legs out of the bed and heaved himself to a sitting position, ducking his head to avoid the slats of the bunk-bed above him. He groaned as the movement reignited that stabbing sensation in his head. Ugh. He had forgotten he no longer had a wand; he couldn’t use his normal barrage of spells to get past the hangover. How did muggles manage? Perhaps Potter would take pity and cast them on him.

He grabbed up the crutches from the floor by the bed and made himself stand upright. His bad leg twinged but mercifully didn’t cramp.

He turned towards the door to the living room and frowned. A slight, silvery light was coming from in there, although it was barely noticeable against the sunshine. He gripped his crutches and swung himself as fast as possible towards the living room, his hangover forgotten; that light looked like a -

Patronus. An otter patronus was pacing back and forth through the air above Potter’s sprawled form, looking highly agitated. Potter was dead to the world, his jaw slack and his limbs tangled in the blankets.

Draco all but threw himself down in a clatter of crutches and shook Potter roughly by the shoulder.

“Potter! Potter, wake up. You’ve got a message, it looks urgent, come on - ”

Potter came to with a start and a snort, eyes widening in instant panic. In two seconds, he was on his feet with his wand drawn and pointed at Draco. Merlin, Draco was an idiot - what had he been thinking, waking Potter like that a week after a war?

He was sure he was about to get hexed, but then the patronus spoke, in Granger’s voice, and Potter wheeled around to face that instead.

“Harry! Where are you? The ceremony starts in half an hour, and Andromeda said you were meant to meet her and Teddy first, and Ron said you never came back to the castle last night. Please come soon, Harry, we’re really worried about you. I’ve got to go. Get here quickly, please!”

Draco breathed a sigh of relief. No-one was injured, no-one new was dead. Potter looked frantic, however.

“Shit - Malfoy - what time is it?”

“Coming up on twenty past, Potter.”

“Twenty past _what?_”

“Eleven, of course.”

“_Shit!_”

Potter took a large step towards the tent entrance, then buckled, one hand going to his head and one to his mouth. He turned abruptly and ran in crouching steps to the tiny bathroom. Draco heard the ugly sounds of retching and his own stomach tightened in disgust. Draco took a few deep breaths to keep himself under control. Rusty as he was, he still had more practice than Potter at dealing with a hangover, and there was only one loo.

Draco heard the toilet flush. He checked his pocket watch again. Eleven twenty-two.

“Oh, God. I feel terrible. I don’t think I can make it, Malfoy.”

Potter emerged from the bathroom and sank into one of the mismatched armchairs, looking quite grey in the face.

“What? Potter, you have to go! You told me you have to last night, in very insistent terms.”

“Did I? Oh, God, my head… Malfoy, I can’t go, I’ll be sick all over Teddy - ”

“You’re a _wizard,_ for Gods’ sake! A couple of charms and no-one will have any idea you’ve been drinking all night, trust me.”

“Well, whatever these charms are, I don’t know them.”

“Oh, come on! Freshening charm, Stomach Settler, Sobriety Hex? Everyone in Hogwarts knows them by the end of fourth year!”

“Well, no-one told them to me.” Potter curled up in the armchair, head clutched in his hands, his wand sticking out from his fingers at an odd angle.

“Potter, if you don’t go to this funeral you will regret it for a very long time - ”

“I know! I know, okay? Can you please speak more quietly?”

Draco heaved himself up off the floor again somehow, using the side of another armchair for leverage. He gathered his crutches from where they had fallen and swung over to stand in front of Potter.

“Potter. There is an obvious solution here.”

“And what’s that?” Potter mumbled into his knees.

“I know the spells. I’ll teach them to you.”

Potter brought his head up and squinted at him. He looked strange without his glasses on. Draco turned and scooped them up from the mantelpiece, where he had placed them last night. Potter took them without a word, put them on, and squinted up at Draco again, more successfully this time.

“No way. Head hurts. Can’t think about new spells. Here.” Potter thrust his grubby, grey-white holly wand towards Draco.

“Are you _mad_, Potter? You can’t just _trust _me with your _wand_…”

“Obvious solution. Are you gonna give it back?”

“Yes, but - ”

“Then fine. Can’t lie to me, right? So get on with it and cast those spells.” He gestured blindly towards Draco with his wand, one hand still clutching his head.

Draco took it, mouth agape. Merlin. He was holding a wand again. He was holding _Potter’s _wand. It didn’t thrum in his grip like his own wand, but Draco could already tell it would work for him just as well as his mother’s. For a moment, the mad desire seized him to apparate straight out of there. But where would he go? The best thing he had going for him these days was currently sitting right in front of him, looking sorry for himself.

Draco shut his mouth and drew one deep breath. There had to be fewer than five minutes left before the start of the ceremony. For a moment, he could see Pansy in front of him in the Slytherin common room, only minutes to go before their first class of the day, asking him to cast the spells for her because she was too lazy and hungover to do them herself. The wand movements suddenly felt easy and familiar under his hand.

He swirled the wand horizontally in a gentle figure of eight, murmured “_Doloregus,_” and Potter looked up, blinking as his headache disappeared. Draco grinned involuntarily at the feeling of the magic travelling down his arm. He drew a slow, flat circle in front of him and said, “_Ventri mitigo_,” and Potter took a grateful breath as his stomach settled. “_Apstemio_,” with a brisk flick upwards, and Potter winced as he found himself fully sober once again. “_Beneolentia_,” with a swish-swish from side to side, and the whisky fumes lifted away - “_Renovare vestimenta_,” with a jab forwards, and a stain disappeared from the hem of Potter’s robe - _“Relego rugis,_” wand held sideways with a smooth pull downwards, and Potter’s robes no longer looked rumpled and slept-in.

Draco closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Using magic again felt amazing, but it was also tiring to do so many spells at once while still suffering from his own hangover.

“Malfoy, this is brilliant, _thank_ you.”

“No problem, Potter.”

“Er - can I have my wand back?”

Draco looked down at Potter’s wand; his grip tightened around it reflexively for a moment. Then he took one more deep breath and handed it back.

“Right, I’ve got to go right now - it must be half past already…”

Potter jumped out of the chair with a lot more energy than before, and took off towards the tent flap. Draco had barely blinked and Potter was running back in.

“Malfoy, you have to come! Here - ”

Potter started tugging at a string around his neck, extracting a pouch from under his robes - the pouch that held Draco’s wand. For one wild moment Draco thought that Potter might be about to give it back, but instead Potter started pulling what seemed like acres of silvery material from out of the small pouch.

“Come on, come on… it’s a bit of a squeeze, really, but I like having it on me… there!”

Potter held up the cloak in triumph and then threw it at Draco without ceremony. As Draco grabbed the elegant ripples of fabric out of the air, he suddenly knew what it was, and he was more dumbfounded than if Potter had decided to give him his wand back. Potter had said he would let him use it last night, but it was also clear that Potter had been so drunk at the time that he didn’t even remember that conversation.

Potter ran into the bedroom and hared back out again holding Draco’s shoes.

“Here, sit down.”

Draco sat, purely because Potter was in a frantic hurry and he didn’t want to slow him down. Potter ran up to him, dropped the shoes, and ran back into the bedroom, shouting, “Get those on - I’ll get you a jumper - ” Draco obediently started lacing as quickly as he could, gingerly easing his foot into the left shoe without putting pressure on his leg, but his foggy mind had finally caught up enough to protest.

“I can’t go, Potter - no, well, the truth is I don’t want to go. It doesn’t feel right or respectful, I’m a Death Eater, for Merlin’s sake - ”

Potter was already back in front of him, holding out Weasley’s newly-black Chudley Cannon’s sweatshirt. Draco took it, and began pulling it over his head.

“She’s - she was your cousin, Draco. Family. You should get the chance to say goodbye. And you did say you’d come.”

“Oh, so you remember that? Potter, you should have got there three minutes ago - ”

“I reckon if you don’t come, then you’ll regret it for a long time. Is that true?”

“_Damn it_, Potter, yes, I probably will, but that has nothing to do with it! No-one but you wants me there!”

Potter was already seizing his hand and pulling him upright, grabbing the invisibility cloak before it could fall off Draco’s lap and handing Draco his crutches.

“No-one but me will know you’re there, so that should work out nicely.”

Potter tugged him by the elbow towards the tent flap.

“All right, all _right_, Potter, no need for rough handling, I’m coming - but I still think this is a bad idea - ”

They emerged into the midday May sunshine. Potter whirled and settled the cloak over Draco in one smooth motion, then immediately grabbed for Draco’s arm before he could move out of range and thus give Potter the slip. Potter tugged him forwards a few more steps, through the wards.

“Ready?” Potter demanded.

Before Draco could even reply, Potter had pulled him into the tight squeeze of apparition.

***

They re-materialised on a small hill of tufty grass in the middle of rolling moor-land, dotted with boulders of granite. This moor must normally be wind-swept, but today the blue sky remained serene and huge above them. About a mile away, Draco could make out a quaint little village, tucked in the lee of the hill on the opposite side of the valley, at the edge of the moor. Nothing looked familiar.

Potter let go of his arm, hissed “Follow me,” and took off in the opposite direction. Draco turned and saw a particularly large boulder - Draco thought the correct word might be a tor - a handful of yards away, looming darkly in the sunlight.

Draco negotiated the tufts of moor grass as best as he could without snagging the damn cloak under his crutches. Potter was well in the lead in a few short moments. Looking ahead, Draco saw Potter skid to a halt in front of a tall woman stood in the shadow of the tor. As Draco got closer, he saw that the huge granite formation was actually made up of two boulders, with a small gap in between them.

Potter’s voice drifted over the still air.

“I’m so sorry, Andromeda - I got a late night and I overslept, I’m really sorry - ”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Harry, didn’t you set a wand alarm?”

“No, I forgot, I’m sorry - ”

“Never mind, never mind. You’ve missed your chance to meet Teddy, Molly has already taken him in. I’ll have to introduce you to him afterwards.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Do stop apologising, I’m sure you needed the sleep. Come on, you’re the last here, we’re ready to start.”

Draco managed to draw level with them, but before he could register more than that his estranged aunt looked unnervingly like his dead one, they both turned and walked through the gap between the two granite boulders. The path was dusty but quite level, and easier to navigate than the grass. Draco managed to keep up, making an invisible third in line as the path narrowed.

As they came through the gap the path widened again, and Draco caught his breath at the sight before him.

The ground fell away in a great bowl shape, the rim forming a perfect circle from the natural grass and granite of the landscape. Down below, in the centre, Draco could see the two bodies laid side by side under a stasis charm. At a glance, the werewolf looked older and his cousin looked younger than he expected. They lay on a bed of woven branches and twigs, which in turn lay in the middle of a large, shallow dip in the granite - for all the world as if it was a naturally-occurring pensieve, only one the size of Dumbledore’s entire office.

_Godric’s Hollow. _He had seen pictures of the Hollow in his books as a boy, but for over twenty years the Hollow had famously hidden itself. Draco imagined teams of witches and wizards walking through this very same gap again and again, and finding only stubborn moorland to greet them.

People stood silent and staggered up every side of the amphitheatre, with enough space between each person to make it seem as though everyone stood alone. The effect was striking, and eerie. Draco followed Potter and Andromeda as they started down the granite spiral path that wound down into the centre, and then he understood how everyone had arranged themselves into such a perfectly spaced pattern; the path widened every three yards or so into natural, circular plinths, designed for standing on.

They walked along just below the grassy rim of the bowl until they were nearly directly opposite where they’d entered. Draco cringed at the sound of his crutches on the stone, but although plenty of people looked up to watch Potter go past, the cloak seemed to be mercifully effective. When they came to where the last person in line stood - it was someone Draco vaguely recognised from a couple of years ahead of him at Hogwarts, possibly a Ravenclaw - Andromeda took up the next available circle, Potter the one behind her, and Draco the one after that.

Draco adjusted his sweaty grip on the crutches and endeavoured to keep his panting silent. The sun was nearly directly overhead, and Draco was half-stifled under the cloak. His heartbeat started to pound painfully behind his eyes, and he recalled that he hadn’t had the time to apply any of his usual hangover charms to himself. He was distracted for a moment by the memory of casting spells again, of feeling his magic channelled through Potter’s wand, before the misery of his current physical situation brought him back to the present. He licked his dry lips and wished he had some water. It was not unlikely that he would pass out from heatstroke before the end of the ceremony, and then everyone would trip over his invisible form as they walked back up the spiral path. _At least Potter would trip over me first._

He could sit down, he supposed, but what if a crutch slipped from beneath the cloak? And what if he needed to move away quickly? It would take him far too long to get up again.

He looked over to his left, past Potter, and watched as his aunt (still peculiar to think that was who she was) closed her eyes for a moment, grief clearly etched in the tight press of her lips. Then she lifted her wand to her throat, cast a _Sonorus_, and spoke with the unfailing grace of Draco’s mother offering the Dark Lord more tea.

“You are all well come.” Andromeda paused just long enough for all eyes to settle on her. Draco had known her for fewer than five minutes, and already he could tell that this woman had not forgotten her aristocratic training in presence and performance. “We are come together to lay bare our loss to the sky. We are come together to pool our memories as water. We are come together to give our dead to the ground. We are come together to bear the blaze of our grief.”

“We are come,” the crowd intoned softly. Draco moved his lips soundlessly over the response, recalling them from funerals years ago - a grandmother here, a great-aunt there. He noted with surprise that Potter also knew the response, when he never seemed to know anything about wizarding culture. How many funerals had Potter already been to over the last week?

Andromeda cancelled the _Sonorus_, and lifted her wand straight up, her posture rigid with defiance and pain. Across the Hollow, every single person lifted their wand too, and Draco clenched his fingers tighter around his crutches, wishing he could do the same.

No-one cast a spell, but the opening words of the ceremony were enough. Starting from the innermost circle, golden beams of light shot upwards, hitting an invisible dome. The dome reminded Draco of the Hogwarts wards, and it perfectly mirrored the shape of the Hollow below. As more and more beams of light poured into it, the blue of the sky faded away until they were encased inside a dome of magic. The grass and the people and the granite changed colour as they were bathed in gold.

Draco gazed around, captivated by the beauty of it. So _this _was what was meant to happen - in the funerals he had attended in the past, the beams of light had simply dissipated in the air. Draco had thought that was what was meant by ‘lay bare our loss to the sky’.

Faces were transformed by the light, becoming softer and more sympathetic. Even the looming hugeness of Hagrid away on the left seemed less rough -

Hagrid.

He had to get to Hagrid.

He had already taken a step to the edge of his circle when he realised what was happening. _Shit. _The Path of the Penitent! Hagrid was one of the seven people he had most wronged - and now the spell was compelling him to kneel before him and ask his forgiveness.

_No!_ No, Gods, no, he couldn’t do that, not here. With a huge effort, he prevented himself from moving any further forward. It felt a bit like the times when he had tried not to say what the spell wanted him to explain to Potter - like a pressure, building behind his eyes and tongue, and he knew that in moments it wouldn’t be possible to resist -

If he’d had his wand, he would have _Stupefied _himself without hesitation. He tried to get himself to turn round, to walk back up the spiral path and out of the Hollow, but his legs absolutely refused to take him further away from Hagrid. The best he could do was to hold himself still, and not even that for much longer.

The only thing he could think of was Potter - if Potter demanded an explanation from him, he suspected that would override the compulsion towards Hagrid. But he was invisible, with every muscle locked against the pull to move. Potter had no reason right now to give him a second thought.

Draco looked wildly around the Hollow, trying to see if there was any other way to prevent the imminent disaster. His gaze skated over a cluster of familiar people standing a little further along from Hagrid, and instantly everything got worse.

Granger.

Weasley.

Longbottom.

The pull on him quadrupled, and there was no way to fight it any more. Draco could feel his heart going more than twice as fast as it should, and his breathing was coming in sharp pants. Oh Gods, this was going to be horrible. He stepped off his circle of granite and onto the grass. The grass descended steeply between the levels of the spiral path, and Draco knew he couldn’t do this on one foot. He lowered himself to the ground, discarding both crutches and continuing on his bum like a deformed crab. He angled himself downwards and to the left, manoeuvring between the standing people, the invisibility cloak still over him, dragging through the grass and tangling with his legs. He could at least delay his appearance until the last possible moment - he knew the spell demanded he be seen as well as heard, but he could make the disruption as short as possible -

The whole thing was beginning to take on a nightmarish quality, heightened by the ethereal golden light. His chest was closing in like it did when he had a panic attack; he couldn’t catch his breath.

Draco was already over halfway to Hagrid. He wished he could move slower, wished the Hollow was larger… There were only two more levels of people below him. The spell was driving him forwards to a spot just at the edge of the basin, roughly midway between Hagrid, Granger, Longbottom, and Weasley, where they would all see him, and where he could face them all. Behind him, he could hear Andromeda continuing with the next part of the ceremony.

“Death has taken our loved ones, but he will not take their stories from us. Let us share those stories now, so all may know how their lives touched ours.”

Oh, no - oh, no - the pooling of memories had begun. And unlike the slow passing of a pensieve in the funerals he had known before, again Godric’s Hollow seemed innately designed for this. Running from each person’s plinth was a narrow granite channel in the ground, leading down into the central basin. All around him, people started bringing their wands to their temples and drawing out long strings of liquid-smoke memory.

Draco passed McGonagall on his left (_oh Gods, not McGonagall, McGonagall will see, everyone will see_) just as she bent down, twisting a memory off her wand and into the channel at her feet. The memory poured down smoothly towards the natural pensieve - until Draco had to crawl over that same channel, the cloak dragging through the silver liquid, and McGonagall stood abruptly. Draco’s shaking hand landed right in it, and he felt the slippery, sacred memory coating his fingers and had to stifle a panted sob, and McGonagall turned her head sharply towards where the cloak was probably no longer fully concealing him -

He lurched out of her reach, panicking outright, and scrambled the last few metres, half-falling down the hill. He crossed channel after channel full with precious silver, smearing it on his clothes and hands as he passed, sullying, besmirching -

The granite of the basin was rough on his skin as he dragged himself along the edge of it, and then he was where the spell demanded him to be. People must have noticed him by now, but he could not hear them beyond the rushing in his ears.

He could not remember ever feeling this frantic. He felt sick. He couldn’t do it, he _couldn’t _-

The spell did not let him hesitate. He was almost grateful that it was taking control, because he personally felt paralysed. He got himself into a kneeling position, a corner of the invisibility cloak getting caught under his leg and almost making him fall. He tore the cloak from over his head. There might have been shouts, even some screams, but all he could do was crane his neck - he had to meet their eyes - there, not so hard to get their attention when everyone was already staring at him, first Hagrid, then Longbottom, Granger and Weasley -

A bright shot of red light fizzled a foot from where it would have collided with his left shoulder. Ropes hit the air a foot from his right. He had to do this before they stopped casting spells designed to trap him and started casting to hurt, to kill.

One last desperate sweep with his eyes - they had to know he was speaking to _them_, they had to get the message - and then shouted over the growing sound around him - “I have wronged you, I beg your forgiveness!”

“Malfoy!” Potter’s voice cut through the rest, surprisingly close (hadn’t he left him all the way up at the top of the Hollow?). Draco tried to turn to see him, but his vision was already swimming, and he lost his balance and fell backwards, landing with a splash in the shallow pool of memories gathered in the basin.

_Oh, Gods, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_…

He welcomed the blackness.


	9. 10th May, 1998

_Draco is sitting down, but even so, his viewpoint is further above the ground than he can ever remember it being. He’s also never had this much hair on his face, or been inside this room before, but he recognises the rough-hewn furniture, and even the tiny, slimy dragon on the charred table._

_“How fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”_

_Draco - no, he’s Hagrid, isn’t he - is about to answer when some parental instinct makes him look away from his newborn (currently loosing an adorable splutter of sparks across the table)._

_Through the gap in the curtains he catches a glimpse of blond hair and wide eyes._

_The fear is instantaneous. The baby has only just hatched, and already he is failing to protect him. When Harry tells him that the kid in question is a Malfoy, the fear doubles._

_The days with Norbert are a strange mix of joy and anxiety. He loves the little dragon as fiercely as any parent loves their child; the only time he can remember bonding so strongly with a creature is Aragog, but he was more of a friend than a son, even while he was a baby. He adores Norbert’s cheeky independence and peevish temper tantrums as much as the times when he curls up, sleepy and affectionate, in his lap._

_The worry is worst at night. He strokes Norbert’s scales tenderly with one oven-gloved hand, and can’t stop himself ruminating about the future. He would do anything to protect Norbert, but what would he be able to do if the Malfoy kid decides to blab? Would they try to - to kill Norbert? (They would have to kill Hagrid first.) Norbert isn’t like Aragog, he couldn’t fend for himself in the forest._

_(At a distance, he is aware there would also be other consequences. He would certainly lose his job, and with it, his home. He would lose Hogwarts. But his worries for Norbert push all that aside.)_

_As the days pass and Malfoy still hasn’t reported him, he allows himself a little bit of hope. But when the reply comes from Charlie Weasley, he knows that it doesn’t matter if the Malfoy boy intends to tell or not. Just the threat of it is too dangerous for Norbert._

_He knows sending Norbert to the reserve is the right thing to do, but that doesn’t make the loss any easier to bear when Norbert’s crate disappears under the invisibility cloak. As soon as the door closes behind Harry and Hermione, he crumples onto his bed, sobbing into his hands._

_At lunch the next day, his gaze is drawn to the Slytherin table. As soon as he spots the kid, he is taken off guard by a vicious flare of anger. _You’ll get what’s coming to you one day, Malfoy, you little shit.

_Then he is horrified with himself. Malfoy may be a Malfoy, but he’s also just an eleven-year-old boy, and he didn’t end up managing to do any harm to him or Norbert. A wave of guilt crashes over him and he resolves to be an adult about this and give the kid some benefit of the doubt._

_But when he takes Harry, Hermione, Neville and Malfoy into the forest for their detention, he can’t help taking enormous satisfaction from the boy’s obvious terror._

_“I’m dying! I’m dying, look at me! It’s killed me!”_

_He had seen it coming - had so nearly managed to get to Buckbeak in time - but as it is, he has to watch from just three paces away as the hippogriff slashes down and blood spurts into the air._

_Much as he dislikes the kid, his gut wrenches with guilt at the whimpers of genuine pain coming from the boy in his arms as he runs up to the hospital wing. He shouldn’t have let the whole class do the exercise at once - he knew something would go wrong, he knew he shouldn’t be a teacher…_

_And that’s the thought that sticks with him all day. It intensifies as he watches Malfoy writhe in agony on the hospital bed, and it stays firmly lodged in his mind even when Pomona tries to reassure him with tales of her worst classroom injuries (“You should have seen the colour his hand went, wand-hand, too - I _told _him to stay away from the Venomous Tentacula…”). It almost drowns out the fussy school governor’s stern speech about how he shouldn’t have been letting third years near hippogriffs at all, although it is joined by the old, urgent wish that he could somehow take up less space._

_There is no question of teaching for the rest of the day, or ever again. He locks himself in his hut and reaches desperately for alcohol. It might warm him up, at least; he’s gone cold all over; the despair is washing over him like Azkaban. Could he go to Azkaban for this? He’s sure Lucius will try, and maybe it’s what he deserves. Oh, Gods, he can’t go back, though. Dumbledore should never have trusted him; he _knew _he shouldn’t be a teacher - him, a teacher, just ridiculous. Hadn’t his dad tried to tell him that he judged danger different from most folk? Oh, his dad would be so ashamed… he hasn’t felt like this since he was expelled._

_The despair is finally shaken somewhat by the earnest faith of Ron, Hermione and Harry. It is displaced more-or-less entirely by fear when he realises Harry has been wandering around in the Sirius Black-infested night. And soon after that, all thoughts of his career are swallowed by fear for Buckbeak._

_He can’t sleep; he can’t eat; he drifts through the days in a miserable, numb fog. It is not as bad as Azkaban, but he does get the same sense of losing himself after a while. He goes back to teaching, but his passion for it died half an hour into that first lesson. He blames himself so strongly for what happened that he is still able to feel guilty about Malfoy while fearing for Buckbeak. It’s not the kid’s fault his father’s an evil bastard. So it takes him entirely by surprise when, about a week later, a bandaged Malfoy smirks at him across an empty corridor, lifts his right arm out of his sling, and waves._

_That little prick. That smarmy little _faker_. For a brief instant, he imagines how easy it would be to stride over there and snap his scrawny little neck. (_No, no, he doesn’t mean that, he would never_.) He makes himself walk away, but he’s still fuming. Malfoy planned this! He had seen what happened, but hadn’t believed it until now: Malfoy had bowed with perfect respect, just so he could step in close enough to guarantee a hit. Only then had Malfoy’s lip curled, and Hagrid had been running towards them before Malfoy ever opened his mouth to goad poor Buckbeak. Hagrid isn’t as stupid as the kid seems to think. Or maybe he is. Well, he learns from his mistakes, and he will never give that evil prat the benefit of the doubt again._

_After that, he no longer underestimates Malfoy. The kid has it in for him: he won’t give up until Hagrid is homeless and hiding in the forest. Every time he hears that sneering voice a part of him wants to flinch, to hide. He feels sick with nerves before every Malfoy lesson. When Malfoy asks a question in class, he freezes up._

_It’s not his physical safety he’s scared for, of course. It’s his livelihood, and whichever innocent creature in his care could be next up on the chopping block. Tom Riddle, that’s who the kid reminds him of. Riddle got him expelled, and Malfoy will be the one to have him turfed out of Hogwarts completely._

_He feels bad for hating Malfoy, because he knows Dumbledore would tell him to give him a second chance. But he isn’t a great man like Dumbledore. Malfoy is so obviously already rotten inside; he so clearly wants to be a Dark wizard like his daddy. It’s bad blood, is what it is. Some folks are just born evil._

_He hates himself a little, too, for his fear. He isn’t scared of much, and he knows it’s stupid to be scared of such a pathetic little tit. But there’s nothing he can do about it._

_There is panic searing his insides as he reads about himself in the _Daily Prophet, _his secret laid bare. ‘We all hate Hagrid,’ right there next to Malfoy’s name, and it’s only then that he vomits. Night after night of hiding from everyone, hating himself. Hands shaking as he writes his resignation letter. The voice inside his head sounding more and more like Malfoy’s (_stupid oaf, can’t even hold a quill properly_)._

_There is rage as he reads Umbridge’s suspension report, and it is more towards Malfoy for bringing up Buckbeak again than it is towards the toad herself._

_There is relief, such relief, when he realises he will never have to teach that vicious young man again. Although by the looks of things, Hagrid gets the sense that Malfoy has got bigger fish to fry this year than trying to fire his teacher…_

_And finally there is overwhelming grief, as he hugs Fang in the dawn light among the fresh ashes of his hut. He feels hollowed out with the hurting of it. He thought he had stopped underestimating the Malfoy brat, but he still had. Oh, Snape might have taken the killing blow, but at least half the blame belongs to Malfoy. And if he sees either of Dumbledore’s killers again, he will rip them in half._

_***_

_Draco is nervous as he opens the train compartment door. The skin on his small hand is a dark brown, and he can see wild, fluffy hair out of the corner of his eye._

_Inside the compartment, an eleven-year-old Malfoy sits, blond hair slicked back, surrounded by equally tiny fellow-future-Slytherins. (And Terry Boot. He had forgotten he used to play with Terry before Hogwarts.)_

_Draco - except he’s not Draco, he’s _her_ \- takes a deep breath and steels him - _her_self. “Excuse me, have you seen a toad? Only Neville has lost his, so we’re checking along the train.”_

_Tiny-Malfoy sneers. “Who are you?”_

_“I’m Hermione Granger.”_

_“Never heard of any Grangers. You must be a - Muggle-born.” The way Malfoy says the word, draws it out, sends a flare of fear up from her gut to her chest. Why would he say Muggle-born like that?_

_Others in the carriage are glaring at her. Her breath falters. This can’t be like primary school, it can’t! There’s no reason for these children not to like her, they’re magical too!_

_“Y-yes, my parents are Muggles.” For the briefest instant, she wishes they weren’t, and then feels such a surge of shame that she wants to cry. She raises her chin instead. “What’s wrong with that?”_

_Malfoy just looks her dead in the eye for several disdainful seconds. She can barely breathe. This isn’t fair. What has she done to make this boy hate her already? She can’t help being Muggle-born!_

_“Goyle, close the door.”_

_The train compartment door slams in her face. Through the glass, she can see the other children laughing at her. And still, that little blond boy looks her right in the eye, smirking._

_Out on the Quidditch pitch, the same blond boy doesn’t look quite as smug. “No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood,” he spits, and people are shouting, moving, Ron gets hurt. Something cold slips into Hermione’s chest and it gets colder when Ron explains: “Dirty blood, see. Common blood.”_

_That night, she wakes up choking. She is being buried alive from the inside out. There is earth in her lungs, her throat, it is spilling out of her mouth and nose… She takes huge, shuddering breaths, trying to coax the horror to let go of her mind. Lying in the dark, listening to Lavender snoring, she reminds herself what Hagrid said: “they haven’t invented a spell our Hermione can’ do.” She holds it close, holds it tight, until she drops back to sleep._

_She hears far too much of that word as the year goes on. “You’ll be next, Mudbloods!” She cannot understand how _happy_ Malfoy looks when he says that._

_Hermione no longer cares about rules as she steals ingredients for the polyjuice potion. Even when her body petrifies as she watches the basilisk slither towards her, her sweaty hand clasping the mirror tightly, it is not as terrifying as that feeling of dirt in her throat._

_It is ten-thirty at night, and she’s been awake for twenty hours so far. Her eyes blur as she tries to read the tiny, fussy print. She doesn’t know how much she has left to give, but she has to keep going. Buckbeak’s court date is in four days, and she hasn’t yet found enough case examples of sufficient quality - and she needs to spend the next few days coaching Hagrid in what to say. Maybe she could gather up all the books and hide in her bed with them, give the time turner just one more turn? Would that mean she would have to sleep on a sofa in the common room again tonight, to avoid herself? She’s too tired to work it out…_

_She props her head up with one hand, and notices her cheek is wet. Tears are dripping steadily down her face. She scrubs at them, irritated. How is she supposed to read if these tears keep getting in her eyes?_

_Now she’s noticed the tears, of course, she can feel her throat tightening too. Oh, fuck. At least she’s hidden behind the stack of books. She is just so, so tired, and nobody can help her. It’s no use, she can’t stop she has so _much_ to _do_…_

_“Haven’t invented a spell our Hermione can’ do.” A surge of bitter determination helps her fight back the exhaustion. She won’t let Hagrid down. She can’t let them kill Buckbeak._

_But she can’t help having a little cry first, gulping quietly to herself in the corner of the common room. Just for these five minutes, worn past endurance to raw nerves and despair, she finally admits to herself that it doesn’t matter if she can cast every spell ever invented. It doesn’t matter how much she studies; she’ll never belong. Knowing things doesn’t make up for not growing up in the wizarding world. She’s too black to be British, too bossy (too _ugly_) to be a girl, too Muggle to be a witch. And she knows they’ll never forgive her._

_She is walking to the library. She is thinking about next year’s high-level OWL study plan that she wants to get mapped out before summer, and trying not to think about last Saturday, Cedric, Voldemort, and how pale and quiet Harry was at breakfast just now. So she doesn’t realise who is walking towards her until it is too late. When she looks up, she sees fifteen-year-old Malfoy swaggering down the corridor not twenty feet away, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle in a way that makes it impossible to walk past them._

Shit. _She tries not to show the lurch of fear in her stomach as she accidentally makes eye contact. But before she can stop herself, her gaze flinches to the floor, and she hopes that if she just keeps walking, they’ll let her pass…_

_They don’t. They stop, and Malfoy crosses his arms, watching her coolly. She raises her head and slows to a stop. All three of them, even skinny Malfoy, are much bigger than her. She more than matches the three in magical strength; logically, physical size shouldn’t matter in the wizarding world at all. Psychologically, an instinct as ancient and primeval as the patriarchy itself is urging her to appease the threat, to not antagonise, to take care. _Not safe, not safe, _whispers across the back of her mind._

_Hermione grips her courage tight and ignores it._

_“Let me through, Malfoy.”_

_“Hmm. No. I don’t think so.”_

_“Come on, Malfoy. Don’t be an idiot.”_

_Malfoy’s jaw clenches. “And I suppose you think you’re so clever, Granger.”_

_She raises her chin. “Yes, actually.” She would never normally say it. She knows very well that the only thing people hate more than a swot is a boastful swot. But Malfoy hates her anyway._

_Malfoy glares, but, surprisingly, he doesn’t start shouting or hexing. This is fast becoming the longest conversation she’s ever had with the prat._

_“Look, Mud - Granger. You need to listen to me. I’m _trying_ to warn you. I don’t actually care what happens to you, obviously, but you should know that it won’t be safe for you around here any more.”_

_She swallows, stunned. Malfoy looks haughty, but it doesn’t sound like a threat. He sounds… sincere. What does he know? What has Lucius told him? Does Voldemort want to make an example out of Harry Potter’s Muggle-born friend? She tries to ask, but her breath catches in her throat._

_Malfoy jerks his head back down the corridor. “So I wouldn’t bother going to the library, Granger. If you Gryffindors have any sense of self-preservation at all, you won’t come back to school next year.”_

_Maybe she shouldn’t. It’s true, the wizarding world isn’t going to be safe for her until Voldemort is killed -_

_Wait._

_“Oh, I know what this is about!” She forces a laugh. “The exam results came out today, right? And I beat you. Again.”_

_Malfoy’s cheeks go pink, and she knows she’s hit the mark._

_“How did your father like the news, Malfoy? I think I’ll take this as a compliment, actually. You’re so certain I’m going to beat you in OWLs that you resorted to some stupid intimidation scheme to get me to leave school entirely. Well guess what, Malfoy. You should know better than to try and intimidate a Gryffindor. No-one is scaring me out of my education.”_

_Malfoy is back to his usual sneering now, the rage obvious as he takes a step closer._

_“Oh, you’re good at reading textbooks, Granger, but you’ve got no idea how the real world works, do you? You think you get the top mark every year because you _deserve _it? You’re not even clever enough to realise the obvious! You only come top because you’re getting special treatment! It makes the Ministry look good to the bleeding-heart lefties if they let some brown little Mudblood bitch get the best grades -”_

_Wizards are just so crap at logic._

_“I think you need to make up your mind, Malfoy. Which is it? Is the Ministry going after Muggle-borns or doing us undeserved favours?”_

_Malfoy’s mouth twists. “You better shut the fuck up, or we’ll _make _you shut up.” Crabbe and Goyle stir behind him, going so far as to literally caress their knuckles._

_Her breath is coming faster. She doesn’t doubt Malfoy will get violent. Her only chance is to get there first._

_As soon as she moves her wand-hand, Malfoy is going for his pocket. But Malfoy didn’t spend the last term helping Harry get ready for the third task. Hermione has researched duelling and Auror combat best practices. They don’t make Auror-standard quick-release forearm holsters small enough for children, so instead she has been practising her nonverbal, wandless _Accio _every night before bed for four months._

_Her wand smacks into her palm; she shouts “_Protego!_” before Malfoy even gets his hand out of his robes. A shimmering shield of air balloons out between them, knocking Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle back a few steps. Malfoy rights himself, snarling, his wand held straight towards her, but anything he tries to cast will just rebound towards him._

_“Was that real-world enough for you, Malfoy? Or would you like a further demonstration?”_

_Crabbe and Goyle look ready to throw themselves bodily against the barrier, but Malfoy holds up his hand. He glares at her._

_“You better watch it, Granger. I meant what I said, you know. We don’t want your kind in our world, and soon you won’t be. I’d go back to the Muggles before it’s too late, if I were you.”_

_Hermione badly wants to point out all the flaws in Malfoy’s reasoning, but she also needs this fight to be over. The adrenaline surging through her is making her feel sick. She can’t imagine how Harry managed to stand alone against all those Death Eaters when she feels ready to collapse from standing up to three bullies in a school corridor._

_She starts walking forward. She’s still sustaining the _Protego _and it moves with her, pushing Malfoy backwards. She twists her wrist and concentrates, and the shield forms more of a wedge shape, ploughing Malfoy and Crabbe up against the right wall and Goyle against the left. Malfoy snarls, incoherent with rage, but she simply extends the _Protego_ to cover behind her as he passes, and forces herself to keep a steady pace all the way to the library._

_It takes about an hour for her hands to stop shaking. The relief and euphoria are intense; she wishes she could tell Ron and Harry how well she dealt with Malfoy, but if she does then they’ll both get themselves in trouble by retaliating. She can only feel absurdly smug and beam at her parchment, on a ridiculous high._

_But that night, in her dreams, she is choking._

_Other moments flash by, moving faster and faster. Most of them are stupid, petty moments: Malfoy mimicking her behind the teacher’s back; Malfoy sniggering with Nott about her being Muggle-born; Malfoy making a pointed comment about how she looks, even how she smells. None of them are so terrible in themselves - but each one does sting. Each one leaves a trace. And when she gets her OWL results, a lingering doubt nags for days: did she really earn the marks? She does her best, as always, to smother it in logic. But underneath, she burns with helpless rage, because she can sense the insecurities coiling deeper and deeper, and she can do nothing to prevent them. She knows she will never again feel truly settled within himself, and she grieves the loss._

_And then she is on the floor in a half-familiar room that Hermione’s never seen before, Bellatrix raving above her. Through the panic and pain and the frantic plotting, she doesn’t have a thought to spare for Malfoy, standing in the corner with his face turned away. It is only when Bellatrix tries to hand her off to Greyback that she realises that Malfoy is her absolute last chance. She is not fully conscious, but with the most coherent part of her mind she starts praying: _Please, please help me - don’t let Greyback get me - I would rather you kill me right here, _please_…

_It is only when she wakes up later, at Bill and Fleur’s, with that choking word forever carved into her arm, that she scolds herself for putting any amount of faith in Malfoy. How naive could she be (still!), when it was always Malfoy who taught her how little she is worth?_

***

_As soon as Draco-as-Weasley comes into psychological existence, the images of a tiny, sneering Malfoy are flickering so fast that he can’t tell what they’re showing him. He gets an impression of the Hogwarts Express, the Quidditch pitch, the Potions classroom, the Great Hall, outside at Care of Magical Creatures..._ _Only the words, and the emotions, come through clearly._

_“I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig.”_

_It isn’t fair - that poncey rich-boy _prat_ wouldn’t survive a second without his money - he probably has brooms to spare, probably already has last year’s Nimbus Two Thousand gathering dust at home. What Ron wouldn’t give for a broom like that…_

_“That hut of Hagrid’s must seem like a palace compared to what your family’s used to.”_

_“Your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those.”_

_“I heard your father finally got his hands on some gold this summer, Weasley - did your mother die of shock?”_

_“You weren’t thinking of _wearing_ these, were you? I mean - they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety.”_

_Gods, Ron _hates_ being poor - he hates it even more than he hates Malfoy, which is one hell of a heck of a lot. Sometimes the knowledge of how he must look, with his broken wand and his patched cloak and his wrists poking out of his threadbare robes, makes him feel physically itchy. Sometimes he wants to scald himself in a hot shower just to get rid of that feeling - like he’s dirty and will never get clean, will never not look ridiculous…_

_“Longbottom, if brains were gold you’d be poorer than Weasley, and that’s saying something.”_

_“Bet you five Galleons the next one dies. Pity it wasn’t Granger - ”_

_“Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t she?”_

_He is _so done _with Malfoy’s crap. If that git doesn’t shut up about his family - about his friends - he’ll - well. The next time he says something, Ron is going to _snap. _He’ll just jump him, in front of the teacher and all, he’ll punch him right in his stupid face. Yeah - he’ll batter that worthless coward slime-ball until he’s whimpering for mercy, right there on the classroom floor in front of _everyone_, and he doesn’t give a _damn _how many house points he loses…_

_The house cup being snatched from Slytherin’s grasp - a glob of mud hitting silvery hair - a brown fist driving into a pale cheek - a flash of a ferret bouncing high into the air - and fierce, vindictive joy seizes his whole body. He will never get tired of seeing Malfoy get what’s coming to him; it is his all-time favourite thing._

_He is so embarrassed that he drinks the mead as fast as he can, without a thought for when he might next get to taste alcohol of this quality and expense. There is not even a second between swallowing and knowing it is poison - his throat closes instantly. His eyes meet Harry’s, and Ron just has time to thank the _Gods_ that Harry knows him so well, that he’s so ready for this kind of thing, before he is crumpling in his chair, black spots drifting across his vision, choking, his whole perception shrinking to the liquid frothing upwards through his airways._

Please, Harry, it hurts,_ he thinks, but he can hear panic in Harry’s voice as he shouts at the professor, and oh Gods, Harry doesn’t know what to do, Ron can’t breathe, he really is going to die…_

_He feels himself going under, feels the blackness moving in, and knows he will never wake again. His entire being suffuses with terror as he loses his grip on consciousness. He screams, but there is no air left in his lungs._

_He’s always thought Mad-Eye was off his rocker, but now he’s not so sure. He squints suspiciously at his forkful of roast potato. What does he think he’ll see, anyway? _He _doesn’t have a magic eye. He’s got to get round to looking up some poison-detection spells._

_He kicks himself whenever he notices these flashes of paranoia - he’s a Gryffindor, and he’s done loads of terrifying things with Harry over the years without it getting to him. (For Gods’ sake, even spiders! Don’t get him started on the fucking spiders…) But the difference this time is in how little he could do, how he hadn’t seen it coming. He’s never been in danger before without choosing to be._

_At least he doesn’t get nightmares like Harry, and the fear fades into the background after a while. The only thing that really sticks is that he can’t smell mead without feeling sick._

_Ron knows that Harry is also awake. Dawn is beginning to lighten the dormitory, and it feels ridiculous to be attempting sleep after everything that’s happened, but at a certain point there was nothing else to do but go to bed._

_He cannot believe Dumbledore is dead. He can’t make his brain accept it. He feels as though his stomach is full of frozen porridge, though, so maybe his body already believes it just fine._

_The bit his brain is stuck on is that _it was Malfoy. _Snape is a shock, but Ron has at least previously toyed with the idea that Snape might be a traitor. Despite all Harry’s warnings, he couldn’t make himself take Malfoy seriously as any kind of threat. Just because Malfoy is a snivelling, cowardly, bigoted bastard doesn’t mean Ron should have discounted him! And now the overlooked pawn has gotten all the way to the other side of the board, and the light side has lost its most valuable piece._

_He’s got to stop thinking in stupid chess metaphors. A person - _Dumbledore - _has died. This war isn’t a game, and anyway, if he was any kind of chess player, he would have seen this coming._

_And then he realises - the _poison _\- and smacks his hand to his face. That was Malfoy too, obviously. (He’s never going to doubt Harry again, not ever.)_

_The numbness in his mind shifts abruptly into seething rage. It’s not even that Malfoy nearly killed him, although that’s bad enough. It’s that Malfoy wasn’t aiming for him. It could have been anyone who drank that mead, _anyone_. How could even a git like Malfoy be that careless? Well, Ron should have learned his lesson with Pettigrew, shouldn’t he. There isn’t a limit on how selfish a coward will be._

_Ron isn’t disappointed when Malfoy admits to his and Hermione’s identities, because he knew that was exactly what the worm would do. He is enraged. Even with five innocent lives and the whole fate of the war in front of him, Malfoy will only save his own skin._

_It’s not possible for Ron’s opinion of Malfoy to sink any lower, but, to his surprise, his loathing can and does increase. Hermione is ten thousand times the person Malfoy will ever be, and yet she is the one who so nearly dies._

_He gets some satisfaction from his old pastime of imagining what he would like to do to Malfoy. No wands - just give him an hour, a locked room, and a sturdy pair of boots, and they’d see which of them would walk out again. It’s helpful to have these pleasant thoughts to dwell upon in the times when he thinks he can still hear Hermione’s screams on the edges of his hearing._

_It’s a cliché, but the battle really is a blur in his memory. All he can remember of the fiasco in the Room of Requirement is the overwhelming heat and how his lungs ached from the smoke, almost in the same way they once ached from poisoning. It wouldn’t ever have occurred to him to try and prevent the Death Eaters’ well-earned fiery deaths, but his instinct to follow Harry is too well-worn by now to suppress._

_One moment, though, clings with merciless clarity: Fred._

_His grief is a howling thing, baying for vengeance. Perhaps this is how werewolves feel, this constant rage a slavering creature inside them, held back by a meaningless veneer of numb humanity._

_He cannot wait to join the Aurors. He cannot wait._

***

_Draco is gawping up at the mural on the - very high - ceiling of a familiar ballroom as if he’s never seen it before. He is so busy following the progress of one of the cherubs that his hand tilts and he spills pumpkin juice all down his front. He startles from the sudden wetness, and again when a shouted laugh comes from right beside him._

_“_Wow_. You’ve got no sense of grace at all, have you?”_

_“Er, what?”_

_Draco turns to see himself, of course, but younger than ever before - this is long before Hogwarts, they’re probably only seven. Malfoy’s face is still more roundish than pointy, although, he knows, nowhere near as round as the face he is currently wearing._

_“You’re so clumsy! Look at your _robes, _you’ve practically turned them orange!”_

_Tiny-Malfoy wraps his arms round his tummy and laughs and laughs. The adults at the charity ball give them indulgent glances._

_Neville knows he’s blushing, but although this boy is laughing at him, at least he’s talking to him. This is the first time Neville can remember seeing so many children all in one place, but the older ones have all gone off to play together, and he’s too shy to interrupt the younger ones over in the toy-corner._

_“S-sorry. My Gran says I’m hopeless.”_

_“That sounds quite likely to me.” Malfoy straightens up and attempts a precocious sneer, but it breaks into an impish grin instead. “Hey, do you want to get out of here?” He tips his head towards the gardens beyond the open French doors._

_Neville feels a hopeful warmth fluttering in his tummy._

_“Um, okay.”_

_“Oh, gross, why did you say that?”_

_“Er - say what?”_

_“‘Okay’! You’re not a Muggle-lover, are you?” Malfoy squints suspiciously for a moment. “I know you must be a pureblood, of course; Mother and Father wouldn’t invite anyone else.”_

_“Yeah, I am, but - wait - do you _live _here?”_

_Now Malfoy looks properly offended. “Are you _actually_ as stupid as you look? My bloodline is obvious from my features alone. I’ve got the classic Malfoy looks and bearing, as befits the sole Heir of House Malfoy. Honestly, you truly _are_ hopeless!”_

_He feels his chin begin to wobble, but before he can decide whether he’s going to cry, Malfoy has grabbed his arm and is towing him out of the ballroom. He gives Neville a tour of a large swathe of the gardens, seemingly intent on impressing upon him the might and strength and grandness of his family home, and Neville is genuinely impressed - this place is nothing like the rambling set of interlocking farm-houses on the Longbottom lands._

_Finally, as the setting sun begins to make the world glow golden around them, they sit down on the lawn and gaze back towards the Manor._

_“This place is amazing,” he says._

_“I know.” Malfoy puffs his tiny chest out a fraction. “So, have you done any accidental magic yet?”_

_“Oh - er, no.”_

_“Really? Not at all? _I_ was levitating my toys to come to me by the time I was two.”_

_“Wow. I - I haven’t, my Gran’s really worried about it… My great-uncle Algie threw me into the sea once, to see if that would make me do something, but… nothing,” Neville mumbles._

_“You _are _pureblood, right?”_

_“Yeah…”_

_“Then don’t worry. Blood will out, Father says. You’ll just be a weaker wizard than me, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of; there are very few families as magical as the Malfoys.”_

_“I suppose.” Neville has never met another child who talks so much, or in such a grown-up way. He feels proud that such an important boy is being his friend. And it’s so nice to hear someone sound so confident about Neville being a wizard…_

_“You’re seven, right? Same as me. We’ll be in the same year at Hogwarts. It’s good to have connections already, you know. I’m going to be in Slytherin. What about you?”_

_Neville frowns, confused about why this boy seems so excited about becoming a Slytherin. You-Know-Who was in Slytherin. However, he doesn’t have the nerve to mention that. “Well, my parents were both in Gryffindor…”_

_The boy recoils, nose wrinkling up. “_What? _You’re a _Gryffindor?_”_

_He sounds so disgusted that Neville rethinks everything he’s ever been told about the house. “Oh, I, er, I don’t think I will be. Gran says I’m too much of a scaredy-cat. She thinks I’ll be in Hufflepuff.”_

_Malfoy has a frozen look of bewildered disdain on his face. “I don’t know which is worse… Gryffindor or Hufflepuff…”_

_“I wouldn’t mind which house I’m in, as long as I have enough magic to go to Hogwarts.”_

_“I told you already, Neville, you’re a pureblood, so you will. But you’re certainly not a Slytherin. I’m afraid you clearly don’t have the ambition for it. Anyway, I’m bored. Want to play a game?”_

_“Okay - er, I mean, yeah, sure. I don’t really know any games, though…”_

_That’s all right, because Malfoy does and he immediately takes charge and tells Neville exactly how to play. The game involves Neville putting on a blind-fold, and Malfoy telling him where to go. It’s dark and quite terrifying, but he wants to please his new friend, and at least when he falls over the grass doesn’t hurt. And it makes Malfoy laugh._

_“Right, so - wait, wait, stop! - gods, you nearly ran into the topiary; you need to turn right - no, that’s _left_, I said _right_ \- yes, and now walk straight forward…”_

_Neville feels the grass under his feet turn to gravel. He must be closer to the house than he thought._

_“That’s it! Keep going! It’s fine, there’s nothing in front of you - in fact, you should run! Go on, Neville, I know you can do it - faster - ”_

_And that’s when his shins collide with a low stone something, and he’s going down hard towards the floor, flinging his hands out -_

_SPLASH._

_His fall is cushioned somewhat by a shallow pool of water, but the stone surface below still jars Neville's arms and scrapes his hands. He is instantly soaked, and all four limbs hurt a lot, and his shocked inhalation is half water. His first priority immediately becomes coughing, which almost distracts him from the pain…_

_“Neville Longbottom!”_

_He freezes. That’s his gran’s voice. He scrambles to pull off the blind-fold and peers up at most of the adults from the ball, all pouring out of the row of French doors to see the commotion. His gran stands with her hands on her hips, her mouth a tight line._

_“What_ are_ you doing, Neville?”_

_“I was just playing a, a game…”_

_“A _game?”_ His Gran’s hands seize him painfully round the waist and she hauls him out to stand dripping on the gravel. “What on earth made you think it would be a good idea to run around without being able to see?”_

_“I, I didn’t - I was with - ”_

_He looks around, but Malfoy has disappeared somewhere. He thinks he can still hear him laughing, though._

_Gran doesn’t seem to hear him. She pulls him towards the huge fireplace in the ballroom, apologising to all the other adults and hissing things down at him like, “Honestly, is this any way to represent the Longbottom legacy?” and “I wish you would engage your brain and _think _sometimes, Neville!”_

_Once they’re home, Gran becomes a flurry of admonitions and drying charms and healing spells and then sends Neville to his room in disgrace, and he can finally cry. He huddles on the bed; the stinging of his hands has gone, but Gran didn’t notice his shins and now their throbbing comes into sharp focus. It doesn’t hurt as much as his chest, though._

_Standing by his cauldron for his first potions lesson, Neville feels quietly hopeful. You don’t need a wand much for potions. His great uncle Algie has a knack for brewing, and perhaps Neville might turn out to have one too._

_But he’s as hopeless at potions as he is at everything else. He does wonder how the porcupine quills got in there, because he could swear neither he nor Seamus had added them yet, but perhaps he did by accident? It is not until his fourth lesson that he spots Malfoy adding ground beetle eyes to his powdered lion-fish, and by then Neville is already on Snape’s bad side. Snape makes him nervous enough to mess it up himself most of the time anyway._

_Neville leaves the library just as Malfoy approaches it. Crabbe and Goyle are with him. This is the first time they’ve seen each other outside a crowd of students, and he hopes for one stupid moment that perhaps all that hatred was a front, perhaps Malfoy feels like he has to act tough in front of others but he would still like to be friends in secret…_

_“_Locomotor Mortis_!”_

_His legs snap together, and he falls forwards with a yell, landing heavily on his shoulder._

_“Ow,” he whimpers._

_“Huh. It worked. Grab his arms, you two, get him up.”_

_Crabbe and Goyle seize him roughly under the armpits to pull him onto his locked legs and push him back against the stone wall of the corridor. Malfoy’s arms are crossed, and his eyes are cold as he looks Neville up and down. His lip curls._

_“Gods. You were chubby enough when we were little, but now you’re properly fat, aren’t you?” He uncrosses his arms and pokes a sharp finger into his belly. “Ugh. Goyle, did you see that? My finger actually _sank in._ All the way!”_

_Goyle guffaws, even though he’s not skinny himself._

_ “That’s disgusting. You’re just a useless sack of lard, aren’t you, Lardbottom? It’s lucky you’ve got such a descriptive name, really. At least there’s plenty of you to practise my Leglocker on. Bit hard to miss.” Malfoy smirks and turns away._

_Neville reels. His shoulder hurts from the fall, his belly hurts from the jab, but it’s the words which bring the tears to his eyes, and he can’t help his audible sniffle._

_Malfoy turns back. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake, you are _such _a cry-baby! What are you even crying for, you great lump?”_

_He wipes his (big, fat) cheeks with his (pudgy) fingers, desperately trying to stop more tears from falling. He only succeeds in crying harder._

_Malfoy’s eyes narrow and his fists clench. “Stop crying, it’s pathetic! I didn’t even _do _anything!”_

_A loud sob escapes his throat._

_“Shut _up! _Salazar, can’t you even take a tiny bit of teasing? You’re the most cowardly Gryffindor I’ve ever seen, _Lard_bottom. The Sorting Hat obviously made a grave error. Actually, I think it was Dumbledore who made the mistake letting you in here in the first place, since we both know you’re barely more than a Squib.”_

_Malfoy practically spits the last word in his face, before spinning around and storming off. Crabbe and Goyle jostle him as they go, but they mainly seem concerned with catching up to Malfoy._

_It is a long way back to Gryffindor tower. Every time he bunny-hops up a step, his belly wobbles like a sack of lard._

_It’s not like Malfoy’s bullying is the only thing keeping Neville from having a happy childhood. School sucks mightily in general, but it is often Malfoy that takes it from a shitty day to a truly awful one. For ages, he torments himself by wondering what he ever did to deserve such malice from Malfoy. If he could figure that out, maybe he could change it. It takes years to face the truth, because it hurts more than the bullying and his constant failure to stop it. The truth is that Neville _can’t_ make Malfoy stop; there was never anything he could have done to get Malfoy to see him as someone worth knowing._

_Neville is painting huge lightning bolts on the library doors while Ginny scrawls ‘Potter lives’ along the wall of the corridor. (She likes to joke that it is not the first time that she has roamed the castle by night leaving foot-high messages in ominous red paint. Her twisted sense of humour is one of the things he loves about her.) _

_They are both dressed in black and disillusioned to boot, but something must have gone wrong with their perimeter charms, because Alecto is on them without warning. They barely have time to clear the corner before her _Cruciatus _hits the doors, leaving a scorch mark next to the dripping paint. Despite the jolt of fear, Neville feels a surge of satisfaction - the paint is a Fred and George special, indelible to all cleaning spells. And, despite everything, students still come to the library: the message will be seen._

_“Get back here!” Alecto screeches._

_He doesn’t even spare a glance at Ginny; she takes the left-hand stairs and he dives behind a tapestry on the right. They already agreed their escape strategy before leaving the Gryffindor common room._

_Neville isn’t worried. Ginny is faster than him, and he is still faster than Alecto. He paces himself as he pounds down one corridor, down a flight of stairs, through a secret passage and up a long set of spiral stairs that corkscrew inside the thick stone wall._

_Then he stops and listens, getting his breathing under control so he can be less noisy. Nothing. The Carrows and Filch will be expecting him to go back to the Gryffindor common room, but he and Ginny are heading for the Room of Requirement instead. They can sleep there - _just _sleep, even though he doesn’t think he’s kidding himself that Ginny might want more too - and join the throngs of students heading down to breakfast in the morning._

_He continues on his way, cautiously confident, pausing at each corner before revealing himself. He is in the final corridor, nearly to the tapestry of the dancing trolls, when Malfoy steps out of an alcove right in front of him._

_He casts a _Protego _instantly (sending a prayer of thanks to Harry, wherever he is, for coaching him so patiently) and turns, sprinting back down the corridor. But the next moment, everything turns pitch-black. He keeps running, hands held out to his sides to warn him if he veers towards a wall, not bothering to cast a _Lumos _\- it won’t help. He has only gone a few steps when:_

_“_Locomotor Mortis_.” Neville’s legs snap together and he goes down hard, his wand skittering away from him along the stone. Bugger. Shit, bugger, _damn.

_For a second, there is only the sound of Nevilles panicked breathing and the crisp steps of Malfoy coming closer. That damned hand of glory means he can see just fine._

_“_Finite Incantatem._” Neville shudders as he feels his disillusionment lift._ “_You, again? How predictable. _Accio _Longbottom’s wand,” Malfoy says, and Neville hears it smack into Malfoy’s palm._

_“Yeah, well, your little Peruvian darkness powder trick is getting old, Malfoy,” he says, with as much nonchalance as his beating heart can muster. He pushes himself to a sitting position and peers uselessly into the blackness._

_“Well, _my_ trick still works, unlike your stupid idea of _hiding_ in the _Room of Hidden Things_. Did you really think I wouldn’t guess that this is where you’ve been holing up?”_

_Neville is just grateful that it’s him who has been caught rather than Ginny. She will hear them, she’ll get away. She’s much smarter than him, who goes lumbering straight into Malfoy’s traps._

_He hears Malfoy step closer and tries to judge the distance - maybe if he lunges and grabs Malfoy round the legs -_

_“_Incarcerous._” Neville is bound from neck to ankle, forced to lie flat as the ropes coil tighter._

_Fine. Fine. Keep him talking, give Ginny warning…_

_“You don’t have to do this, Malfoy. Alecto isn’t anywhere near. You could just let me go. I won’t say a word.”_

_“Shut up, Longbottom.”_

_“I’m serious. Harry told me last year, I know you don’t really want to be doing this. He said you couldn’t kill Dumbledore - ”_

_“SHUT. UP.”_

_Neville braces himself for the _Cruciatus_, but it doesn’t come. He feels a tiny spark of hope - maybe it’s true, maybe Malfoy could be talked round -_

_“Please, Malfoy. I know you’re in a tough position, but you could really help us - you can help the right side win!”_

_Malfoy snorts. “Oh, come off it, Longbottom. You’re just as gullible as when we first met, if you believe that.”_

_“You - remember that?”_

_“What? Of course I do, idiot, watching you flounder in that fountain was hilarious.”_

_Neville is surprised to feel a stab of hurt. He can’t keep the genuine disappointment from his voice._

_“Maybe you’re right, Malfoy. I must be stupid to think you’d change. You’ve always enjoyed hurting people, after all.”_

_The particles of darkness are clearing now. Neville can see Malfoy’s face, all twisted up in anger, his knuckles white on his wand. He looks so offended that Neville realises his first instinct was right - Malfoy _doesn’t _want this, but that just makes it all the sadder. He tries one last time, anyway, even though he knows it’s hopeless._

_“Malfoy. If you can’t see where things are headed, then you’re the blind one. We have to fight him.”_

_Malfoy sneers. “Ha! As if _you_ would last a second against the Dark Lord. You have - no idea. None. I _have _seen where things are going. You’re deluded if you think fighting him will make any difference.”_

_“I don’t care. I have to. It’s the right thing to do.”_

_“It is _suicide!_ You’re a fucking _pureblood_, Longbottom! You didn’t have to get yourself involved in all this. Maybe you should see if you can get that through your fat head while you’re with the Carrows tonight: this is all. Your own. Fault.”_

_And with that, Malfoy taps his wand to his Head Boy badge, and Neville's foolish hope is over._

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic. I got swept up by Drarry in autumn 2019 and have not left the fandom since.
> 
> I'm afraid this fic is not pre-written, so I'll be updating it when I can. Fair warning: it's going to be monstrously long, and will take literal years to finish (*grimacing face emoji*), but I promise I have it all plotted out and I am in this for the long-haul.
> 
> Those who are willing to stick with me chapter by chapter and become one of my intrepid cheer-readers, you have my utmost respect and undying gratitude!
> 
> Please do comment, I'd love to know people are reading my work. :)


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